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25 


V ' 


THE LION’S SHARE 

1 


BY 

MRS. CLARK WARING 


PUBLISHERS 

BELFOKD, CLARKE & COMPANY 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO 

LONDON : H. J. Drane, Lovell’s Court, Paternoster Row. 

The Household Library. N. Y., No. 26, Vol. 4. Nov. 16, 1888. Annual Subscription fSO.OO. Issued 
serai-weekly. Entered at the Post Office at New York as second class matter. 






THE POLITICS OF LABOR. 

By Phillips Thompson. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloth, $1,25. 

“ This book will mark an epoch in American thought. It is fully up with the times. 
* * ♦ It is the prophet of the New Era.” — The People, R. I. 

“ One of the most valuable works drawn out by current discussions on social and econ- 
omical questions, and one that is sure to take a high place in the permanent and standard 
literature of the — Opinion, Rockland. 

“ This book is enlightening and inspiring; every thoughtful man and woman should 
read it.” — Tribune, Junction City. 

“ Mr. Thompson presents the whole question of land and labor reform as clearly as 
could be desried.”— Chicago. 

BANCROFT’S HISTORY OF THE COLONIZATION 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 

By Georhe Bancroft. Two vols in one. 12mo. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 

“ Since Ranke’s death George Bancroft is the greatest living historian. The American 
citizen who has not read his history of the United States is a poor patriot, or an unfortu- 
nately ignorant person. We fear there are too many of them, as there are of those who 
have never even read the constitution of their country. It is not too late for these delin- 
quents to buy a copy of this great book, and learn something that will be of interest and 
profit the remainder of their lives.” - The Churchman 

THE STORY OF MANON LESCAUT. 

From the French of L’A.bbe Prevost. A new translation, by Arthur W. 
Gundry, from the French edition of 1753, with over 200 full-page and 
other illustrations by the great French artist, Maurice Leloir, and others. 
Reproduced by .photogravure, wood-eiigraving, and photo-engraving 
processes from the superb edition de luxe, published in Paris in 1885. 
ito. Cloth, extra gold and red, in a neat box, $3.00. [N. B. — The price 
of the French edition, with same engravings, is $20.] 

PAINTERS OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. 

By Edith Healy. Illustrated by 25 original copperplate engravings of 
choice masterpieces of the leading Italian painters, executed in the high- 
est style of art by the famous French engraver, M. DeMare. Small 4to. 
Richly bound, extra cloth, gold title and ornamentation, $5.00. Full 
morocco, $4.00. Cloth, school edition, $1.25. 

WASHINGTON IRVING’S 

LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

3 vols., 12mo., cloth, $4.50; 3 vols., 12mo., half morocco, $9.00 ; 3 vols.. 
12mo., half calf, $9.00. 

To speak at this late day in praise of Irving's “ Life of Washington ” would be like 
painting marble or gilding refined gold. No American library, public or private, is com- 
plete without this work. This is a new edition, printed from new plates, at a very mode- 
rate price. 

LES MISERABLES. 

By Victor Hugo. 1 voL, large 12mo., $1.50 ; the same on heavy paper in 3 
vols., 12mo., cloth, $4.50; 3 vols., 12mo., half morocco, $9.00 ; 3 vols., 
12mo., half calf, $9.00. Illustrated 

“ Les Miserables ” is universally admitted to be the great masterpiece of Victor Hugo, 
that brightest literary light of modern Prance. This book, once carefully read will neve” 
be forgotten. The study of it is an education. 

BELFORD, CLARKE £ CO,, Fuhlisliers, 

CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO. 


THE LION’S SHARE 


M 



imS. CLAEK WAEING 



Chicago, New York, and San Francisco 

BELFOED, CLARKE AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

London: H. J. Drane, Lovell’s Court, Paternoster Row- 


CorTMGHT, 1888, 

BY 


BELFORD, C5LARKE & CO, 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

Sukey in the Meadow 

CnAPTER II. 

A Mote in the Eye ' 

CHAPTER III. 
A Total Eclipse 

CHAPTER IV. 
Evx^a 

CHAPTER V. 

Players on a Stage 

CHAPTER VI. 
A Deal in Futures 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Last Struggle 


; U 


19 


28 


40 


59 


m 


- 1 ^ 


THE LION’S SHARE 


CHAPTER L 

SUKEY IN THE MEADOW. 

“ Where’s that cow ?” 

The speaker was old Farmer Creecy. He was coming up the back steps, 
and his words were addressed to his wife, who was manipulating an arcbaic 
churn on the back porch. 

‘‘ What cow ?” sharply retorted Mrs. Creecy, startled out of all knowledge 
of four-footed beasts by the unexpectedness of the question. 

“ What cow ! Look here, now, Alvirey, have you got any sense at all ? 
How many cows have we got ? Can’t you count that far ? Don’t you know 
how many ?” 

Alvirey did. Looking like sheep being led to the slaughter, and feeling 
w^orse than two sheep under such chcumstances, she hung her head low, 
and answ^ered, meekly : 

“ One cow.” 

“ Then I ask you, again, where is that cow ?” 

“ And why do you ask me that, Jacob Creecy ? You know as w^ell as I 
do where she is. She’s down in the meadow.” 

“ And where’s Mell ?” 

“Down there, too. They ain’t nobody else to keep Sukey out the corn.” 

“ Ain’t, hey ? Ha! ha! ha! That’s all you know about it ! Where does 
you keep your senses, anyhow, Alvirey ? Out o’ doors ? Because, I ain’t 
never had the good luck to find any of ’em at home, yet, as often as I’ve 
called ! This very minute there’s somebody else down in the meadow long 
side o’ Mell.” 

“Why, who, Jacob? Who can it be?” 

“You wouldn’t guess in a month o’ Sundays, Alvirey. Not you! 
Guessing to the point ain’t in your line. It’s that chap what’s staying 
over at the Guv’ner’s, who looks like he had the title-deeds of the American 
continent stuffed loose in his vest-pocket. ” 

“You don’t say so ! Lor’! Jacob, w^hat does he want down there with 
Mell ?” 

“What does he want? If you had a single grain of sense, Alvirey, 
you’d know without any telling. He w^ants to make a fool of her ! That’s 
what a man generally has in view when he runs after a woman. But, I am 
a thinking, that chap won’t make no fool out of Mell, for Mell’s got a long 
head, like her old daddy, and a tongue of learning to back it ! Just you 
keep on a saying nothing. You never missed getting things into a mess 
yet, as I knows on, ’cept when you let ’em alone. I’ll shut down on him 
right away, and then I’ll be hlarsted if Mell can’t take care of herself ! 
Don’t be nowise uneasy, Alvirey. Mell takes after her old dad.” 

Alvirey did not return immediately to her churning. She craned her 
neck and got on her tiptoes, and gazed curiously after her husband as his 
stout figure rolled heavily to the edge of the breezy woodland, and thence 


6 


THE LIOJTS SHARE. 

beyond to the newly cleared grounds, and onward still to that narrow patb 
among the pines, whose turf-margined and daisy-dotted track was a covert 
way to the meadow. Presently, through its mazy windings and the medium 
of a hazy summer atmosphere, Mr. Creecy came in sight of a youthful 
Jersey, sedately cropping some tender blades of grass on the enticing bordei- 
land of a promising cornfield, and a young girl not far away seated on an 
old stump in a shady nook under a clump of trees. Her costume consisted 
principally of an airy muslin frock, nebulous in figure, and falling about 
her in simple folds, and a white sun-bonnet, which was a bonnet and some' 
thing more — to be explicit, an artistic elaboration of tucks and puffs and 
piled -on embroideries, beneath which peeped forth a face as prodigal ol 
blooming sweets as a basket heaped with spring flowers. 

At her feet lounged in careless fashion a young man. He was lithe and 
straight, and had that striking cast of countenance which catches the ob- 
servant eye on first sight. This look of distinction, which in him was as 
marked in form as in feature, has been called, not inaptly, thoroughbred- 
ness. A self-made man never has it. All that a man may do will not put 
it upon himself, but his son possesses it as an heritage. 

Looking upon such persons, we know intuitively that they have always 
had the best of everything, beginuing from their cradle, the best otits kind. 

Not always strong, these thoroughbred faces are generally attractive. 
The one before us possesses both strength and beauty. We may consider 
it foremost among his first-rate advantages. 

Seeing this huge monster of humanity bearing down upon them, slow- 
wabbling, like a proboscidian mammal, fast-puffing, like a steam locomotive, 
the young man lifted himself to a sitting posture, and without any suspicion 
as to the true state of the case, remarked to his companion : 

“ Here comes a doughty old customer, upon my word ! ‘ What tempest-, 
I teow, threw this whale with so many tons of oil’ ” 

The young lady cleared her throat — she cleared it point-blankly. 

“Excuse me, but, perhaps you do not know, that is — is — my father.” 

Stammering forth these words, she at the same time turned v-^ry red in 
the face. 

This was slightly awkward, or would have been to another. As for this 
young man, he did not mind a little thing like that. 

“ I did not know it,” he told the girl, unruffled; “ I crave your pardon. 
The fact is, it is an habitual failing of mine to make sport of fat people. 
The lubberly clumsiness of a huge coi’poration of human flesh is to me so 
irresistibly comic ! My mother tells me a dreadful day of retribution is 
coming— a day, wherein I shall be fifty ^nd fat, and a fit subject for the 
ridioule of others.” 

“I cannot discern the foreshadows of such a day,” replied the girl, 
glancing with unconscious approbation at the admirable outlines of a figure 
whose proportions were well-nigh faultless. She fingered nervously at her 
bonnet-strings, smiled a panic-stricken little smile, broke out into a cold 
sweat of fearful expectation, and through all the horrors of the situation, 
tried her best to emulate the young man’s inimitable air of cultured com- 
posure. He got up at this Juncture from the ground, not hastily, not awk- 
wardly, but in his own time and at his own pleasure, and standing there, 
entirely at his ease, looked every inch the living exemplar of that expres- 
sive little phrase — “ don’t-care.” 

Some persons object to being interrupted, he did not. 

The girl stood up, too, but stood with such a difference I More and more 
disconcerted she became with every passing second, so ashamed was she 


TTIE LION'S SITAHE. 


7 


of lier unsightly old father, in his blue cotton farm «lothes, dirty and baggy, 
and his red cotton handkerchief— no redder than his face— so ashamed, 
and ^Yith such a sense of guilt in her sluime! Truth to tell, the contrast 
btdween the two men thus confronted, was almost startling ; the bloated 
ungainliness of the one, th<‘ sinewy shapeliness of the other ; the misshapen 
grotesqueness of the one, and the sculpturesque comeliness of the other. 

It was a contrast painful to any intelligent observer, and for the poor girl 
bebne us, about to introduce a lover of such mold to a father of such 
aspect, it was like being put to the rack. 

Mr. Devonhough, father.” 

Mr. Who f' gasped a big voice, struggling out from smothered depths 
of grossness. 

“Mr. Devonhough,” repeated the daughter, looking all manner of way.s, 

‘‘ a friend of the Rutlands.” 

“ How does ye, Mr. Deviloh ?” inquired the old farmer, in his exceed- 
ingly countrified, agonizingly familiar manner ; extending a big, rough, 
red, and very filthy hand to be shaken by this exquisite sprig of refined gen- 
tihiy. Mr. Devonhough, needless to mention, touched it as gingerly as if 
it had been a glaringly wide awake and aggressively disposed Cobra do 
Capello. He endured the ceremony in silence, however; about as much as 
could be reasonably expected from one so superbly self-controlled. 

“ What will father do next?” wondered the perturbed young lady, in 
burning suspense. What he did was to stare unmercifully into the young 
man's face, as if every separate feature was a distinct and incomprehen- 
sible phenomenon, and, afterward, inspect him with due carefulnesfi, and 
at his very deliberate leisure, from the hat on his head to the shoes on his 
fe(?t. 

Mr. Devonhough did not flinch. Some persons object t© being stared 
at; he did not. It is very foolish to mind such things. And bfjsides, he 
had eyes as well as this old Brobdinguagiau, and knew how to use them 
to quite as good a purpose. While the bellicose Creecy took in slowly the 
outward manifestations of this bland young stranger, the young strangw 
himself, in about two seconds and a half, had cross-examined every con- 
stituent element in the old man's body, and thoroughly analyzed even tho 
marrow in his bones. 

We have intimated that the old man's figure was bad; his face was a 
dreadful climax to a bad figure, so marred it was by worry, so battered by 
time, so travel-stained on life’s rough journey, so battle-scarred in life’s 
hard strife. Behind this forbidding frontage, the old man kept in store a 
good, sound heart ; but wdiat availed that to his present inquisitor ? A • 
good, sound heart in an ugly body, is the hist thing a yopng man looks for . 
in this world, or cares to find. 

From the inspection of so much ugliness, Mr. Devonhough glanced towards 
the daughter; it was merely a glance, for w’ith a delicate sense of feeling, • 
he quickly looked away in an opposite direction. Flushed she was with 
shame, ill at ease, ready to cry out with a bitter cry, accusingly towards 
heaven, unspeakably humiliated; but, withal, a winsome lass, so fresh and 
fair, so pretty. Such a father ! Such a girl ! In heaven’s name how do 
such things come about ? 

Satisfied with his investigations, Mr. Creecy now remarked, quite 
cheerfully : 

“ I s’pose, sir, you air a drover ?” 

“ A drover ? No, sir ; as far iis I am able to judge, I sSn not. More, I 
cannot say, as I do not know what you moan.” , 


8 


THE LIOHS SHARE. 


“ Den I reckin, sir, you air er furiner inter the bargin.” 

‘ ‘ No, sir ; not a foreigner either, though I was educated abroad — partly. ” 

“ Dat’s it,” ejaculated the old man, triumphantly. “ Eddicashun is the 
thing what plays the Ole Harry wid the onderstan’in’. Dar is my little Mell, 
dar, when she war er chit of er gal, an’ knowed nuthin’ ’bout the things 
writ down in books, she war er mighty smart gal. She had a onderstan’in’ 
of plain English, mity near es good es mine, an’ she could keep house, an’ 
make butter, an’ look arter farm bizniss in gin’ral, not ter say nuthin’ ’bout 
so win’ her own does ; an’ now, bless God! arter gittin’ er fine eddicashun, 
she don’t know the diffrance ’tween er hoss an’ er mule, or er bull an’ er 
heifer; an’ she’d no mo’ let yer ketch ’er wid er broom in her han’, or er 
common word on her lips dan steal er chickin ! Es fur es my experance 
goes, nuthin’ spiles er gal like high schoolin’. I purt myself ter a heap er 
trouble, young man, ter edicate my only darter, but I’d purt myself ter er 
long site mo’, ter onedicate ’er, ef I know’d how !” 

This speech amused Mr. Devonhough to such an extent that he reluct- 
antly displayed a set of very white teeth, and Mell’s rather strained gayety 
found an agreeable echo in his pleasant, sounding laughter. Even the old 
farmer’s features relaxed. He was “consid’ble hefted up” at the undis- 
guised effect of his own facetiousness. 

“ The reason I axed ef yer wuz er eattle dealer,” he proceeded, ‘4s dis. 
You ’pears ter be in the habit er cornin’ hur every mornin’ ter see our fine 
Jersey. She’s er regular beauty, ain’t she ?” 

“ She is — worth coming Jo see.; but .since you press the point, I feel 
called upon to disavow coming here for any such purpose.” 

Here Mr. Devonhough turned his contemplative glance from the direc- 
tion of Suke’s charms, and fixed it mischievously upon Mell who, hav- 
ing already, since the beginning of this interview, looked into the four quar- 
ters of the globe, now dropped her eyes in search of the mysteries be- 
neath it. 

“To be honest wid ye,” admitted old Creeey, “I didn’t ’low ye wuz 
arter Suke, ezzactly, but I sorter reckiu’d ef yer’d come ter see Mell, it’s 
the front do’ yer'd er knockt at, es I ust ter do when I went er courtin’ my 
gal— Mell’s mammy — an’ had it out comferterble in the parler. We has er 
very nice home up dar on the hill, with er whole lot er fine furnisher in 
the front room, which Mell never rested ’till I went in debt ter buy. Now 
its mos’ paid fur, an’ I kinder ’low Mell ’ud be glad ter see yer mos’ enny 
time.” 

“ Thank you,” responded Mr. Devonhough, with frigidity. 

“ He mought go now, Mell, ef yer’d ax him.” 

“Not to-day, thank you,” turning to Mell, with more graciousness of 
manner. “ In fact, I have not yet breakfasted ;” and he abruptly bowed 
adieu, and made his escape. 

He was quite out of sight before father or daughter addressed a word to 
each other. At length the old farmer demanded roughly of the girl 
“ What in the tarnation she wuz er blubberin’ erbout ?” 

“ What, indeed !” sobbed Mell, in a frenzy of passion, and with eyes of 
storm. “I have good cause to cry. What else can I do? I can’t say 
Damn ! ” 

‘ ‘ Can’t yer ? AVhy not ? ’Tain’t the euss what’s so bad ; it’s the feelin’. 
Ef the devil’s in yer, tui-n him out, I say. I ain’t no advercate er bad lan- 
guage, but ef er man feels like cussin’ all the time, he mought as well cuss! 
Dat’s my opinion. An’ ef it will help yer to cool down er bit, my darter,’ 
I’ll express them sentiments, which ain’t too bad for a young lady ter feel, 


THE LIOXS SHARE. 


9 


but only to utter. So here goes— but remember, Lord! ’tain’t me, it’s Mell 
— damn ! damn ! damn ! Sich er koncited, stitf starched, buckram-backed, 
puppitied popinjay, as this Mr. Devil — ” 

‘‘ Hush your mouth,” screamed the daughter, beside herself with rage ; 

“ I don’t want Mm damned!” 

“You don’t ! Then who ?” 

Mell, wrought up to the highest pitch of exasperation, made no reply 
beyond looking daggers and gnashing her teeth. 

“ Not your old dad, Mell ?” 

“ No, father ; I don’t want you damned either. But what did you come 
down here for ? What did you call him a cattle dealer for ? What did you 
talk about such horrid, nasty, disgusting things, for ? Oh ! I am mortified 
almost to death.” 

“ I sorter reckon’d yer’d hate it worser’n pisen,” chuckled the old farmer; 
“buter good dose of pisen is jess what some folks needs bad. Come, 
come, Mell, hold your horses 1 It's your eddicashun what's er botherin’ of 
yer !” 

“I wish to God I had no education!” exclaimed Mell, passionately. 

‘ ‘ It’s turned out to be the worst thing I ever did do, to get an education ! 
It has made me unhappy ever since I came home and found things so dif- 
ferent from what they ought to be. How poor and mean a home it is! 
How lowly its surroundings, how rude its ways and how I am degraded 
and fettered and hampered and looked down upon for things beyond my 
control !” 

“I knows— I knows” — answered her old father, with that suspicious 
thrill-in-the- voice of a subjugated parent. “It’s yo’ ignerront ole daddy 
an’ yo’ hard-workin’ ole mammy what’s er hamperin’ ye ! We ain’t got no 
loving little Mell, no longer, to say, Popsy and Mamsy, so cute, but only er 
fine young miss, who minces out ‘ father ’ and ‘ mother ’ so gran’, an’ can’t 
hardly abide us, the mammy what bare her, and the daddy what give her 
bein’. I knows. Ef it warnt fer us, ye’d be the ekill of the tiness’ 
lady in the Ian’, wouldn’t ye, Mell? Wall, ye kin be, my darter, in spite o’ 
us, ef you play yo’ kerds rite. You’se got es big er forshun es Miss Kut- 
lan’ — bigger, I believe. Hern’s in her pockit, yourn’s in yo’ phiz. But, 
arter all, a gal’s purty face don't ’mount ter mor’n one row er pins, ef she 
ain’t got no brains to hope it erlong. Play yo’ purty face, Mell ; play her 
heavy, but back her strong wid gumshun ! Then you’ll git ter be er gran’ 
lady o’ fashion, in spite o’ yer ugly ole dad an’ common ole mammy. 
Now, I wants ye ter tell me somethin’ ’bout dat young jackanapes. What’s 
his biznisrs ? What is he ?” 

“ A perfect gentleman !” 

“ Sartingly — sartingly. I seed dat, as soon es I sot my eyes on ’im, but 
what sorter man ? My ole dad ust ter say, ‘ one fust-rate man could knock- 
inter blue blazes er whole cart load er gentlemin’. I’ll tell yer fer er fack, 
er gentlemin ain’t nothin’ nohow, but er man wid his dirty spots white- 
washt. But what air the import er this one’s intentions respectin’ of ye ?” 

Whatever her ideas on this point, the girl was too modest to express 
them. 

“ Wall, maybe you kin tell me the dispersition of your own min’ regardin’ 
him?” 

“ Yes. I can do that,” she replied with alacrity. “ Make up your mind 
to it. I’m going marry him just as soon as he asks me. And the sooner 
the better !’’ 

‘ ‘ Exactly ! But when is he gwine ter ?” 


10 


THE LION’S SIlAIiE. 


“ n/)w do I know, father ?” 

“ I kin toll ye, Mell. NeoerN' 

“ You don’t know one thing about it — not a thing !” 

“ Sartingly not ! It’s the young iins these days what knows everything, 
an’ the ole ones wliau doiit know imthin’. But yo’ ole dad knows what he’s 
talkin’ ’bout. The likes o’ him will never marry any gal who puts herself 
on footin’ wid or cow. Does yer reckin Miss Rutlau’ would excep’ his visits 
in er cornfiel’, and let him make so free ?” 

“It only happeiied so," father.” 

“Hump! It’s happen’d so er good many times, es I happen ter know 
Happenin' things don't come rouiT so reg’ler, MeU. . See hur, my gal, ’tain’t 
no use argufyiii’ wid me on the subjec’. I ain’t got nary objecshun ergin 
yo’ marry in’ the young man ; provided — now listen, Mell I— provided path 
kin git Min. He’s es purty es er grayhoun’, an’ I reckin has es much intel- 
lergence, but insted ef lettin’ him make a fool er you, es he’s now tryin’ ter 
do, turn the taoies, Mell. The biggest fool on top o’ this airth is the woman 
who wants ter git married ; the next biggest fool is the man in er hurry 
ter git er wife! Ouc mo’ word, Mell, an’ I’ll go my way, an’ you kin go 
yourn. Ain't gw ine ter mortify you no mo’. Remember, what I say: thar’s 
only one thing you dassent do wid er fine gentlemin— Don’t 
triis’ him, Mell; don’t trus’ him ! My chile, the good Lord ain’t denied ye 
brains, use ’em ! Here ends the chapter on Devilho — ” 

Turning off abruptly, Mr. Creecy puffed sturdily up the hill, leaving his 
daughter deep in the sulks, but with much solid food for reflection. 

Her eyes followed him sullenly. He was but one remove from — a 
darkey. Never liad he appeared so irredeemably iigly, awkward and 
illiterate; never acted so altogether and exasperatingly vulgar, horrid and 
abominable, and yet she pondered deeply on his words. Their effect upon 
her surprised even herself. Can an unschooled man be wise ? Ah, Mell ! 
wisdom is not curbed by rhetoric, nor ruled by grammar. * The respicere 
yinem of the unlettered appears oftentimes to hejti7^e dimno. 

After a wliile Mell wiped away the very last tear of agonized pride, 
which hung like a dewdrop on her long curling lashes. The gall and worm- 
wood of her [(resent feelings were somewhat abated. She knew what she 
was going to do. 

“ I’ll get out of this !” exclaimed Mell, speaking to herself in particular, 
and into space at large. “ Get out of it, the very first chance.” 

Get out of what, Mell ? This humdrum life of little cares and big trials ? 
tliis uncongenial association with an overworked and sickly old mother 
(once as pretty as yourself, Mell) and an ill-favored, ill-mannered and 
illiterate old father? 

Is that what Mell intends to get out of ? 

Yos, and she means to do it in the easiest possible way, according to her 
own conception of the matter. Other girls may find it necessary to work 
their way, by a long and tedious process, out of disagreeable surroundings, 
but she will do it with one brilliant master-stroke — coute qiCil coide. 

Put a placard on pretty Mell; proclaim her in the market place; hawk 
the news upon the street corners; inscribe it on the pages of the great 
Book up yonder 1 

To unite her destinies with some being — not divinely, blessing and being 
blessed— not vitally, loving and being loved; not necessarily a being affec- 
tionately responsive and, therefore, fitted to become the sharer of her joy 
and the assuager of her grief, but simply some being of masculine endow- 
ment serving in the capacity of a latch-key, through whose instrumentality 


TEE LI0E8 SEAEE. 


11 


she can gain admission into the higher worldly courts, for whose untasted 
delights her whole nature panted, is henceforth, until accomplished, the end 
and aim of Mellville Creecy’s existence. 

Ho, there! all ye buyers, come this way! 

Here’s a woman for sale ! 


CHAPTER II. 

A MOTE IN THE EYE. 

In Pompeii, eighteen hundred years ago, people— a good many people, 
were dreadfully afraid of dogs; so much so that many of the householders in 
that famous old city put Cave Canem on their front-door-sills, as a friendly 
piece of advice to all comers-in and goers-out. Just how their feelings 
were affected towards the domestic cow, we are left to conjecture; but 
now, after eighteen hundred years, and in less famous localities, people— a 
good many people— are still afraid of dogs, and without a nice sense of dis- 
cernment in their fears, include cows, putting the two together as beasts 
that want “ discourse of reason.” 

Now, this is unrighteous judgment; for even a cow should be looked at 
fairly, even if she does show the cloven hoof. There are cows and cows, 
as well as men and men. Suke, the young Jersey, would not toss her horns 
at a butterfly, much less hurt a baby. She was sagacity itself, and grant- 
ing she did not know the buttered side of bread, which is likely, she did 
know, to a moral certainty, where she got her grass and how. 

Early the next morn, Suke began to low, and hoping to be heard by virtue 
of insistence, kept it up until nightfall, by which time she had bellowed 
herself hoarse. Suke could make nothing out of it, and no doubt dropped 
to sleep, theorizing on the perversity of remote contingencies, and wonder- 
ing why it was that she had spent all the long hours of that breezy sum- 
mer day in the lot, and the companion of her outings in the house. 

The late afternoon found Mell in dainty attire, seated on the front porch, 
gazing wistfully in the direction of the Bigge House. He had not found 
her in the meadow in the morning, perhaps, he would seek for her in the 
little house on the hill, in the evening. It could not be that he had avoided 
paying her any attention that could be noticed by others ; she had some- 
times thought so, but then it could not be. She dismissed the idea; it 
was too uncomplimentary to herself, and too defamatory towards him. 

But the slow hours dragged on ; he came not. Mell sat alone. At ten 
o’clock she crept sadly into bed — into bed, but not into the profound 
slumber of youth and a mind at ease. Far into the night, her unquiet 
thoughts were yet heaving to and fro ; advancing as restless billows of the 
sen, retreating as vaporous cloud-mists in the sky. Her snow-white bed— 
a feathered nest — erst so well suited to light-hearted repose, had changed its 
flexible lines of comfort into rigid lines of care. 

Dropping to sleep at last, Mell dreamed she had made the world all over, 
from pole to pole, after a new model and on a modern plan, and having 
fitted it up expressly for her own needs, found it ever so much pleasanter, 
and a great improvement on the old. 

It was upon the same old world, however, she opened her eyes the next 
morning, and into one of its most worrying days, holding, indeed, more than 
its share of disappointment and worry. 

But when the third day was drawing to its weary close, and her longing 


12 


TEE LI0N^8 SHABE. 


heart longed still unsatisfied, existence had become a burden almost insup- 
portable to poor Mell. For the third time she donned her prettiest dress. 
He must come to-day. Out again upon the little po^-ch, with a book in her 
hand, and trying to read. Mell was oppressed with a sense of extreme iso- 
lation, a wasting famine of the heart, a parching thirst of the eye. In her 
despairing loneliness, incapable of any other occupation, she scanned 
eagerly every passer by ; brooded deeply on many passing thoughts. This 
lonely waiting, in a small waste corner of the great wide universe, for a girl 
of Mell’s ambitious turn of mind, was, in truth, hard. It was lowest pauper- 
ism to her panting spirit— panting to achieve not little things but great. 
Humble strife in a little world, amid work-a-day environment, and among 
everyday people, had no charms for Mell. Such living was, in a word, 
unbearable. 

And over there across that beauteous valley, in the enchanted halls of 
the unattainable, life was a delightful series of interesting events, redolent 
of delicate sentiments and sweet-smelling savors, spiced with novelty, 
brimful of pleasure, amusing, absorbing, far-reaching, all-embracing ; in 
brief, a ceaseless symposium, purged of every ugly, common or narrow 
element, as roseate and as captivating to the fancy, as hand-painted satin 
framed in mosaic. 

A boy walked up the garden path. The young lady seated on the porch, 
saw him coming, and a feeling of exultation shot through all the blood in 
her veins. The boy held a note in his hand, and Mell jumped into the 
contents of that note, intellectually, in less than the millionth part of a 
second. He could not stand it any longer ; he was writing to know if he 
might call, and when. She had a great mind to let him come this very 
evening, though he did not deserve it ; but then, do men ever deserve just 
what they get, good and bad, at women’s hands ? 

“ A note, ma’am,” said the boy. Mell took it in silence, opened it trem- 
ulously, and read : 

“ Suke is unhappy. Me too. Don’t disappoint us to morrow, and send 
me a bit of a line, sweet lassie, to say that you will not. J. P. D.” 

“ The scribblings of a school-boy,” muttered Mell, inconceivably dashed. 

“ No answer,” she told the boy. When the messenger was beyond reach 
of recall, she was sorry she had not replied to the note, or sent word, yes; 
for, perhaps, it would be better to see him once more, have a plain talk, 
and come to some understanding. The more she dwelt upon the matter, 
the more certain she became that this was her best course; so upon the 
morrow, the half -past five o’clock breakfast was hardly well over, when, with 
alternate hope and fear measuring swords within her, she fled to the lot for 
Suke. With one arm thrown affectionately around the Jersey’s neck, the 
two proceeded most amicably to the meadow. There she waited an hour 
nearly, before Jerome came; but he did come, eventually, wearing the love- 
liest of shooting- jackets, with an English primrose in his buttonhole, ra- 
diantly handsome, deliciously cool, and as much at his leisure as if it did 
not make much difference to him whether he ever reached his destination 
or not. 

Thus Jerome — but what of Mell ? Every medullary thread, every centrip- 
etal and centrifugal filament in her entire body was excited over his com- 
ing. She was flushed, and so hot and flurried, and had been waiting for 
him, it seemed to her, twelve months at least, and it enraged her now to 
see him sauntering so slowly toward her, just as if they had parted five 
minutes ago. Poor Mell, after her experiences of the past three days, was 


THE LION'S SHARE. 


13 


in that condition of body when a trifle presses upon one’s nervous forces 
with all the weight of a mountain. Irritated, she returned his good morn- 
ing coldly. 

“Dear me, Mr. Devonhough ! Is it really you ? Why did you come ? I 
did not send you word I would be here.” 

“No, you did not. Nevertheless, I knew you would.” 

“Nevertheless, you knew nothing of the sort ! How can you say that? 
I had a strong notion not to come.” 

Jerome made a gesture of incredulity. 

“ Oh, a notion! I dare say. Girls live on notions, bonbons, sugar-plums, 
taffy, and what not; a pound of sweetened flattery to every half ounce of 
wholesome truth. But laying all notions aside, you will always come, Mell- 
ville, when I send for you. ” 

“ How dare you,” began Mell, nettled to the quick and purposed to give 
him an emphatic piece of her mind, and then ignominiously breaking down, 
constrained, dismayed, crimsoning to the tips of her ears, paling to the 
curves of her lips, and wishing she had died before she left the farm-house 
that morning. 

“And now I have offended you,” said Jerome drawing nearer, “and I 
did not mean to do that, pretty one! I cannot help teasing you, sometimes, 
because when you are teased your face has that innocent, grieved expression 
of a thwarted child, which I do so dearly love to see. And I must, perforce, 
do something-in self-defence, you have been so cruel tome.” Histones 
were low, now, and as oily as a lubricating life-buoy. ‘ ‘ I have waited for 
you one hour each day; I have gone away after every waiting, desolate and 
unhappy. Don’t you know, when two people think of each other as we do, 
when two people love each other as we do, that separation is the worst form 
of misery ? Then why have you been so cruel, Mell ?” 

Peeping under the fluted archway of the white sun-bonnet for an answer, 
his face came in dangerous nearness to its wearer; their quickened breath 
united in a symphony of sweet sighs, their quickened pulses throbbed in a 
unison of reciprocal emotion. 

^ne moment more, and — Mell stood off at some little distance, looking 
back roguishly at the figure kneeling alone beside the old stump, with out- 
stretched arms tenderly embracing naught, and stealthy lips defrauded of 
their prey. 

Mr. Devonhough did mind a losing game such as this. To be made to 
feel foolish and to look foolish, was more than he could tolerate under any 
conjuncture of circumstances. He extricated himself as speedily and as 
gracefully as possible. 

“ Miss Creecy !” 

“Mr. Devonhough!” 

“You will probably treat me with ordinary civility, at the time of our 
next meeting.” 

“ And you will probably do the same toward me.” 

“ We shall see, as to that.” 

He bowed blandly, and turned upon his heel. He was going away ? W ell, 
he wouldn’t go far. Mell was so confident on this point, that she seated 
herself comfortably on the old stump again, and gave herself no uneasiness. 
She could not credit the evidences of her own senses when the moving 
figure became first a mere speck upon the horizon, and then a something 
gone, lost, swallowed up into the unseen. 

“ It passes belief,” said Mell ; “surely he will come back, even yet !” 


14 TEE LIOES SHABE. 

She waited one hour longer; she waited two — he evidently did not intend 
to come back. 

She went home with a troubled heart.. 

The next morning, feeling somewhat more cheerful at what she considered 
the certain prospect of seeing him again, and to a somewhat better purpose, 
she called for Suke, in feverishly high spirits, and the two set off together 
on a spirited race dowm the hill. 

One hoar— two hours— three hours— and not a sign of her truant lover, 
j Mell burst into an agony of tears. 

“lam no match for him,” she sobbed. “He is heartless and cynieah 
and imperious and selfish. He does not care in the very least bit for me 
and I” — sprinsring to her feet, and dashing away her tears — “ I do not know, 
at this moment. Jerome Devonhough, whether I most love or hate you !” 

This feeling of sullen resentment sustained her through that long, long 
day. In the cool of the evening her mother sent her on an errand to the 
little country store, about a mile distant. Coming back she encountered a 
gay cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen on horseback, conspicuous among 
them, Jerome. She had no reason to suppose he recognized, or even -saw, 
the quiet figure plodding along on foot, and catching the dust from their 
horses’ hoofs. 

“ This is my life,” said Mell, looking after them with yellow eyes, “ while 
others ride, I walk !” 

The noise of their clattering feet and merry voices had scarcely died 
away, when there came another sound; faint at first and uncertain, it came 
nearer and nearer. A solitary horseman dashed up to her side and dis- 
mounted. 

“Jerome! Is it you?” exclaimed Mell, with a glad start, forgetting all 
the anger she had been nursing against him since yesterday, in the joy of 
seeing him again. “ How could you tear yourself away from that lively 
crowd ?” 

“ One, if she is the right one, is crowd enough for me,” declared Jerome, 
with a laugh; and throwing his bridle reins negligently across his arm, he 
walked along beside her. “When I saw’ you, Mellville, I dropped my w'hip 
out of pure delight, and as it is a dainty trifle belonging to Clara — Miss 
Rutland, that is — adorned wuth a silver stag’s head and tender associations, 
I had, of course, to come back for it. At all events, I could not have closed 
my eyes this night, without seeing you, making my humble confessions, and 
imploring your forgiveness for my conduct of yesterday. I behaved 
abominably. I confess it. I am truly sorry. And, at the risk of falling in 
your esteem, I am going to tell you something — my temper is a thing vile — 
villainous, but it does not often get the better of me as it did yesterday. 
Forgive me, dearest ?” 

j “I am not your dearest,” Mell informed him, with head erect. 

“ Not ? Why, how’s that ? ‘ Nay, by Saint Jamy,’ but you are I I have 
one heart, but one, it is all yours; you have one, but one, it is all mine. 
We are to each other, dearest, Ita lex scriptay 

“The matter is one in which I, myself, shall have a say-so.” 

“ You have had a say-so I You have said : ‘ Jerome, I love you !’ ” 

“ How can you speak so falsely ? It is not true — I did not say so.” 

“Not in words,” conceded her tormentor, “but you dOj all the same, 
don’t you, petite ?” 

“lam not your petite, either,” protested Mell, driven almost to despera- 
tion. 


THE LIOX'S SHARE. 15 

“ Ko ? Tlien you are sure to be my darling. That’s it, Meil ! You are 
certiiiiiiy a darling, and mine.” 

“I am not!” shrieked Mell, clioking with anger. This mockery of a 
sore subject was really unbearable. 

“Not my darling, either?” inquired Jerome, grave as a Mussulman. 

“ Then what the dickens are you ?” 

“ A woman not to be trifled with,” said Mell, hotly; “ who finds it much 
easier to magnify injuries than to forgive them.” 

1 “ Like the rest of us,” interposed Jerome; “but that is not Christian, 

you know.” 

“ You are enough to turn the saintliest Christian into a cast-away,” pro-A 
oeeded Mell, severely. “ Can’t you bo serious for a little while ? 1 am not 
a child to be mocked at and cajoled and cozened and hood- winked, faire 
pattes de velours., treated to flim-flam and sweet-meats, knowing all the 
while that you are ashamed of my mere acquaintance.” 

“ You can’t think such a thing !” 

“ I do think it 1 I have cause to think it ! See here, suppose you were 
in love with Miss Kutland — ” 

“I can’t suppose that 1 I couldn’t be if my life depended on it; not 
after seeing you. Why do you wish me to suppose that ?” 

He shot a keen glance at her. 

“ That I may ask you this question — If you were, would you make love 
to her after the same methods you employ toward me ?” 

“No; I don’t believe I would. I am quite sure I would not. Tim 
woman is herself responsible for the way in which love is made to luvr, 

I can’t be with you any time without wanting to call you some pet name, 
and I never feel that way with Clara. ” 

“It is my fault, then, tliat you are so disrespectful?” 

“ Am I disrespectful ?” 

“ You are. Listen to me for a moment, Mr. Devonhongh. If you really 
care for my society, as you say you do, why do you not seek it as you 
io the society of other young ladies — at home ? My father is a poor man, 
but he is honest; and honesty should count for something, even in good 
society. He is also illiterate, but no one can say aught against his char- 
acter ; and character ought to be more desirable tliau much learning. 
Then, again, although the blood in my veins may had: in blueness, it is 
pure, which is a matter of some importance. Altogether, I don’t see why 
you should look down upon me.” 

“ I do not look down upon you !” Jerome was earnest enough now. 
“I know that I ought to have called at the house, but — ahem! my 
time is not exactly at my owm disposal. In a word, I have not had an 
opportunity.” 

Jerome, saying this, looked far away in pensive thoughtfulness. Mell, 
listening, looked hard into his face. 

“ Opportunity !” ejaculated Mell. “ You manage somehow to call upon 
me pretty often elsewhere !” 

“ Not at a visitable hour.” 

“Were I a man and wanted to see a girl, I’d make my opportunity !" 

She laughed, derisively— there is something very undiverting in such 
a laugh. 

“ Would you, Mell ? No, you would not. You would do like the rest o^ 
mankind; submit as best you could to the inflexible logic of events and do 
the best you could under the circumstance.s.” 

“ Is a comfleld the best you can do under the circumstances ?” 


16 


TEE LW1T8 iSHAUE. 


“ It is Mell— the very best. Now, my sweet Mell, lam going to be serious 
— really serious — dreadfully in earnest. I acknowledge that you have some 
cause to find fault with me. There are things ‘ disjoint and out of frame’ 
in my wooing, which I cannot explain to you at this time. Bear with 
them, bear with me for a little— there’s a dear girl— and when I come 
back—” 

“ You are going away ! Where, Jerome? When?” 

“ Only a run over to Cragmore, for a week or ten days. I have friends 
there, who are writing for me. Another guest is coming to the Bigge 
House, and I rather think we shall be in each other’s way, Mell.” 

She leant upon his words as if they planned 

“ Eternities of separate sweetness.” 

Mell, will your regard for me bear a heavy test ? I cannot now speak 
such words to you as my feelings prompt me to speak, but will you not 
trust me blindly until certain difficulties which surround me are overcome? 
Is your affection great enough for that ?” 

“ I do not know,” faltered Mell; “ I would trust you to the world’s .end, 
and to the very crack of doom, if you would only tell me.” 

“ And then it would not be trust,” Jerome gently reminded her, with his 
mysterious smile. Catching his glance of i)enetrating tenderness, a vivid 
breathing reality from a misty background of fogs and doubt, under the 
spell of its enchantment, Mell thought she could. Her face softened. 

“ It will be hard, Jerome, but I will try.” 

“Then, believe me, all will yet be well with us. Whatever untoward 
event may occur, whatever else you may have cause to doubt, never ques- 
tion the sincerity of my attachment. I call upon God, who readeth the 
heart of man, to witness that you, only, are dear to me — you, only, precious 
in my sight. Believe that ; be patient, and trust me. ” 

The deep silence which followed these words was broken only by their slow 
moving feet, crushing the crisp leaves beneath them, and the wild palpita- 
tions of the girl’s heart. Crystal stars made haste to lend their liquid 
glimmering to the scene, and blinked knowingly at each other from azure 
heights on high. The sweet south wind, in melting mood, murmured tune- 
fully above their heads, swelling in delicious diapason of melodious sug- 
gestions, and mingling with mysterious elements in stirring pulse and 
thrilling nerves. 

The rasp of a discordant tone, thrust vehemently into this sweet blending 
of concordant harmonies, disturbed upon a sudden Mell’s unwonted peace 
of soul. She heard her father’s voice. He was saying: “ Don’t truss him, 
Mell; don’t truss him,” 

“ How can I be patient,” she asked, with a touch of her cld petulance, 
“ unless I know why it is you treat me so ? Jerome, tell me your difficul- 
ties.” 

“ And by so doing increase them ? No. kfy hands are full enough as it 
is, and to have you incessantly fretting and fuming i bout little crooked 
things wdiich all the fretting in creation w^on’t straighten out, w^ould be 
more than 1 could stand. Melville, you must really conseitt to be guided 
blindly by my judgment in this matter. I have studied the subject care- 
fully, and it is only for a little while, swnet. We are young, we can afford 
to take things easy.” 

“ Men of pluck,” exclaimed Mell, with spirit, “ don’t take things easy ! 
They grip hold of things and turn them into moulds of purpose.” 

“Do they, little wiseacre ? Then, manifestly, I am not a man of pluck. 


THE LION’S SlIAHE. 


37 


I am made of weak stuff, a feeble straw, perhaps, in your estimation, 
tossed about by every little puff of air ! Ha! ha! ha! How little you know 
about me, Mell! ” 

‘‘That is true,” responded ^fell, promptly, adding, with that lively turn 
of exiu-ession which gave such zest to her conversation, “very little, and 
that little nothing to your credit! ” 

Jerome was amused. He laughed and stopped, and forthwith laughed 
again. 

“x\h, Melville, you charm me afresh at every meeting. Where do you 
get all your sauce piquant ? Beside you for life, that old meddling busy- 
body, ennui, will never get a single chance at a fellow. Your name ought 
to be Intiuite Variety.” 

“ And yours,” retorted Mell, with the quickness he enjoyed, “Palpably 
Obscure ! But here we are at my own gate. Fasten your horse and 
come in.” 

Her voice was absolutely pleading. 

“ I would with ever so much pleasure, but — that whip is yet to be found, 
and the riders will be coming back. I must at once rejoin them. Good 
night, MeU.” 

‘‘ Good- night,” responded Mell, from the other side of .■the gate, and in 
angered tones, “Jerome, have I not spoken plainly enough to you ? Mu.sfc 
1 repeat that I am not your toy — not your plaything— but a resolute woman, - 
determined to maintain my own respect and to accept nothing loss than 
yours ? You shall not so much as make free with the tip end of this little 
linger of mine, until — ” 

“ Well,” said Jerome, “ let me know the worst. When will that terrible 
interdict be removed ?” 

‘‘ When you can enforce the right by virtue of possession.” 

“Heaven speed that moment!” exclaimed he, sighing audibly and 
mounting his horse. “ When shall we meet again, Melville ? ” 

“ That rests with you.” 

“Let me see, then. Hot to-morrow, for at daylight we are off to 
Gale Bluff for the day. Not on Wedne.sday, for there’s a confounded 
pic-nic afoot for that day. I wish the man who invented pic-nics had been 
endowed with immortal life on earth and made to go to every blessed one 
of ’em I But on Thursday, Mell, I shall be in the meadow at the usual 
liour.” 

“ But I won’t 1 ” 

“ Yes, you will, Mell.” 

“ Positively, I will not 

“ Nonsense. W^hat is your objection ? Where is the harm ? The young 
ladies at the Bigge House entertain me out of doors.” 

“Do they?” 

Moll was astonished, and began to waver. 

“ T thought it wasn’t considered the thing.” 

“ On the contrary, it is the one thing warranted by the best usage. Out- 
of-doors is now in the fashion. Doctors preach it, preachers expound it, 
legislators enact it, and the whole people make it a decree plebiscite. 
Clara sits with me for hours under the trees — ” 

“ Oh, does she ! ” interrupted poor Mell, with a pang. Seeing her way 
to a question she had long been wanting to ask, she subjoined quickly : 
“And what do you think of Clara Rutland, Jerome ? Do you call her an 
interesting girl ?” 

“ I never have called her that,” replied Jerome, “ never that I know of, 


18 


THE LION'S SHARE. 


but— she'll do. One thing, she can talk a fellow stone blind at one 
sitting. But that’s nothing. Starlings and ravens can talk, too.” 

At the end of this speech, Mell was doubly anxious to know Jerome’s 
real opinion of Clara Rutland. It seemed to her that the question was 
more open at both ends than it ever had been before. 

Jerome patted his horse’s head, told him to “ Be quiet, sir!” and resumed 
the threads of discourse. 

“What was I saying? Oh, yes! We live out of doors at the Bigge 
House. There wouldn’t be any use for a house there at all, if it wasn’t tor 
bad weather. Those girls try their best to be agreeable, but none of them 
are provoqimnte and charming, like you, Mell. While they sleep away the 
sweetest hours of these golden summer mornings, what harm is there in 
you and I enjoying pleasant converse together in the green fields, inhaling 
the pure air of heaven ? I promise you to be on my best behavior. 1 
promise you to uphold the integrity of the tip end of that little finger 
inviolate ; and so you will be on hand without fail, Mell, and so will I, and 
BO will something else.” 

“ What else, Jerome ?” 

He bent low from his saddle-bow to whisper into her ear ; 

“That supreme happiness which is present everywhere when you and I 
are together. Be sure to come, darling. And now, once more, good* 
night!” 

Ho galloped off, leaving Mell standing in the gateway, and on the 
uncomfortable side of a very knotty point. Did Jerome really love her ? 
She believed he did — ardently. Did he love her well enough to surmount 
those difficulties of which he had spoken ? Did he love her well enough to 
marry her ? 

“Aye, there’s the rub!” cried Mell. Her mind fairly swarmed with 
ugly suspicions, some of them as infinitesimal, and at the same time as 
dangerous as those microscopic bacteria which enter the physical laboratory, 
disorganizing, and, if not quickly eliminated, destroying the very strong- 
hold of life itself. And as biological analysis was not yet, at that time, 
practiced as a method of research into <^he germs of things, Mell must needs 
fall back entirely upon inferential deductions. 

Those difficulties, what could they be that she might not know them ? 
If this, tantalizing, and yet, withal, most fascinating, of created beings, truly 
loved lier — loved her in love’s highest sense, and with no thought of decep- 
tion, would he at every turn put her off with honeyed words and paltry 
evasions ? Would he have said, “ You must really consent to be guided 
blindly by my judgment in this matter,” if he valued her as she valued 
him?” 

Of one thing she was sure ; she would be guided blindly by no human 
being, man or woman, in anything. 

“Wo, I won't 1"^ she audibly informed the dew-damp lilies and the 
secretive rose, stamping her foot to impress it upon their understanding. 
Catch any wide-awake, thoroughly independent, altogether self-sufficient 
and splendidly educated American girl going it blind at any man’s behest! 
She would make short work of his courtship, and him too — first. 

Still pacing distractedly up and down the garden path, Mell heard a 
window open saw a head protrude, and heard a voice, which said: 

“ Send ’im ter his namesake, Mell. Let ’im git tliar before ho gits the 
better o’ you!” 

“So he shall, father.” 

' “ Theii go ter bed.” 


THE LION’S SHARE. 


19 


“I am going now — going to bed,” she continued, communing witli her- 
self — “to bed, but not to the meadow Thursday morning. I’l] cut my 
throat from ear to ear, just before i start to the meadow again at the bid- 
ding of Jerome Devonhough!” 

Bravo for Mell ! Strong in this determination, she is now comparatively 
safe, except for the one menacing fear, that this sentimental feeling she 
has for Jerome may interfere with the more serious business of life. ' Love 
was all well enough in its way, but what this country maiden pauted for, 
was a new life on a higher plane, with or without love. It was the thing 
her education demanded. It was the thing she intended to accomplish. 

After all, she went to bed in very good spirits. She was tolerabl^' sure 
of bringing Jerome to her own terms, and if not— well, not to make a sad 
subject likewise tedious, Mell, in spite of all her love for Jerome, was as 
much for sale as ever. 


CHAPTER III. 

A TOTAL ECLIPSE. 

Nothing ever turns out just as we expect. 

The next day promised to be long to Mell, but before the old tall clock in 
the corner tolled out the hour of ten, something happened which gave to 
its every moment a pair of golden wings. Miss Josey Martlett, one of tlioso 
ancient angels who personate youth, who endeavor to assimilate facial 
statistics and unfledged manners, who are interested in everything under 
the sun except their own business, came driving up to old man Creecy’s 
farm. Under this lady’s auspices it had been, and through her material 
assistance, that the sprightly little country girl had been mercifully 
snatched out of regions of ignorance and darkness, and maintained for a 
number of years at a famous boarding-school, where, among otlier things, 
she had been taught to worship the beautiful in all its forms, to cultivate 
the refined in all its processes, and to execrate the common and the ugly 
in all its manifestations. A defective curriculum — for what is more com- 
mon than human frailty ; what uglier than, oftentimes, duty ? 

Let us hasten to concede that old man Creecy has some show of reason on 
his side. Not all education educates. The best may furnish us with feet 
and hands, eyes and wings, trained members, fit implements, shields, 
anchorage, strongholds, and stepping-stones; but also hiding-places, wnak 
spots, loopholes, clogs, and stumbling-blocks. 

“ I would stay, but I can’t,” protested Miss Josey, as Mell insisted upon 
her taking off her hat and sitting down in the most comfortable rocker in 
the house, while she herself sat beside her and toyed with the visitor’s 
hand, -and fanned away the heat; and then ran for a glass of fresh butter- 
milk, and brought in some red peaches and blue grapes on an outlandish 
little Jap waiter in all colors, “just too ’cute for anything. ” Miss J osey was 
Mell's only connecting link with the country “ quality,” and hence appre- 
ciated in due proportion to her importance. 

“I declare, Mell, you spoil me to death,” simpered Miss Josey, “and 
nothing else in life is half so nice as being spoiled to death. But I must 
eat and run— must, really— I’m just so busy I hardly know which way to 
turn. I want you to go to a picnic with me to-morrow.” 

“A picnic!” 

Mell’s heart got into her throat at one single bound, and stuck there. 
Jerome had said something about a picnic. 


20 


TEE LION'S SHABE. 


What picnic, Miss Josey 

“The Grange picnic. I'm one of the lady managers, as perhaps yon 
know, and I want you to help me wdth the tables. Mrs. Rutland cannot 
go, and there are so few to be depended on.” 

“ You can depend on me,” said Mell; “ I will go with you gladly— gladly 
spend and be spent for you, who have been always so kind to me.” 

Hadn’t she, though ? But this was the crowning act of all Miss Josey’s 
kindness. At this picnic she would see Jerome, and, who knows, perhaps 
find out his difiSculties! 

‘ ‘ You are a sweet girl, Mell,” returned Miss Josey, gratified. “ So grate- 
ful, in a world chock full of the basest ingratitude. I told Miss Rutland, 
‘ Mell Creecy is the girl to take vour place. She knows what to do, and 
she’ll do it !’ ” 

After this, Mell could scarcely follow the drift of her visitor’s conversa- 
tion. She was in a ferment of impatience for Miss Josey to be gone, that 
she might put the finishing touches to a new white dress in readiness for 
to-morrow’s festivities. But Miss Josey, who couldn’t possibly stay two 
short minutes when she arrived, did not get off under two mortal hours, or 
more. This is one of those little peculiarities of the sex, which the last one 
of them disavows. 

Gone at last, Mell went dancing over the house and singing over her 
work at such a lively rate, that her father put his head in at the chamber- 
door wanting to know “ what she was er makin’ sich er fuss erbout ?” 

“The Grange picnic, father, tra-la-la ! I’m going with Miss Josey, 
folderolloll !” 

“ Oho ! Devilho gwine ter be thar, I s’pose ?” 

“Yes, indeed ! Hail, all hail ! La-la-tra-la !” 

“ Make him toe the mark, darter !” 
f Mell’s song abruptly ceased. 

To make an individual of Mr. Jerome Devonhough’s subtle intellect and 
masterful will toe the mark was going to be no easy matter. He was far 
from being an exact science whose formula could be reduced to the touch- 
stone of certainty. Softer were his ways, and more complex his web, the 
fabric of his purpose more difficult to trace, than the intricate meshes of 
this cob-webbery lace she was basting in the neck of her dress. Neverthe- 
less, every stitch of her needle fastened down her gathering intentions 
to the figure of her mind. Jerome must have done with these evasions; 
he must teU her the truth, and the whole truth; he must henceforth act 
right up to the notch, or else she would put an end to everything between 
them, and in the future have nothing whatever to do with him. Several 
measures such as these, rightly enforced, -would, she believed, bring the 
most slippery Lothario in existence down on his knees at a woman’s feet. 
JfihQ man really loved the woman. If Jerome really loved Mell. 

“If, Si, Wenn, >S'e vociferated Mell, stamping her fiery little foot. 
“Why was it ever put into articulate speech ?” 

She knew it, this highly educated girl, in so many languages, and could 
not blot it out in a single one of them ! Is not mere human knowledge a 
kind of blunt Lool? 

But she was ready, bright and early, the next morning, so promptly ready 
that Miss Josey commended her in unstinted terms. 

“ Had it been Clara,” said Miss Josey, as Mell sprang lightly into the little 
basket phaeton, “she’d have kept me waiting, probably, a whole hour 
without a scruple of compunction ! Come, we will go to the Bigge House 
first for some things I must carry.” 


TUB uon;s suare. 


21 


To the Bigge House ? The gates of Paradise were about to open for 
Well. Rejoice with her, all ye who read. How will you feel when 
the doors of your big house are about to unclose themselves before your 
long-aspiring and wistful gaze, disclosing within the risen Star of Conquest, 
the bright realization of many golden visions and many rose-colored 
dreams ? 

This Bigge House, of so much local fame and importance, was, in fact, a 
spacious mansion of no small pretention, and having been originally built 
for a man named Bigge, in spite of all that the present owners could do in 
the way of writing and calling it Rutland Manse, it remained, year after 
year, the Bigge House. Pleasantly situated, well-constructed, and well- 
kept, the house itself was surrounded by extensive and beautiful grounds, 
a grove, a grass plot, a flower garden embellished with trellises, terraces, 
fountains, rare shrubbery, and an artificial pond to row pretty little boats 
on, and secondly, to propagate fish. The family were of an old stock, but 
a newly rich — a class who like much to enjoy their money, and better still, 
to show it. 

On this cloudless summer morn, perfect as weather goes, so perfect that 
one might look upon it as a Providential complicity in the booming of tlm 
Grange picnic, a gracious provision of nature to suit one special occasion, 
the approaches to the Bigge House presented a stirring scene. Carriages, 
buggies, and wagons, vehicles of every description, and vehicles nondescript, 
lined the roadways in every direction. Servants were rushing hither and 
thither, fresh arrivals coming every few moments to swell the throng, 
voices calling to each other in joyous recognition, fair hands waving au 
remirs, as they dashed by, without stopping, on their way to the scene of the 
day's festivities. A pleasurable sense of expectation brightened every face, 
a buoyant sense of exhilaration quickened every heart, and high above the 
heads of all, a brilliant sun, regnant on a field of blue, lighted up the long 
sloping hills and broad green valleys. Mell looked about her wondering! y. 
Who were all these people, and how many of them w'ould she know before 
the day was done ? 

Miss Josey had left her holding the reins while she ran in for a cargo of 
bundles. It was not at all necessary, except in Miss Josey's imagination. 
Her well-groomed little nag was alive, it is true, but some live things creep, 
and Aristophanes — called Top, — was one of them. He never tliought of 
starting anywhere as long as he could stand still. In this respect, he 
differed from his mistress, whenever stayed anywhere, as long as she could 
find enough news to keep going. 

“ Hold him tight, Mell,” had been Miss Josey’s injunction when she left 
Mell alone with Top. 

At another time this arrangement would have greatly disappointed Mell. 
Her whole being had clamored to get inside the Bigge House, and, behold ! 
here she sat along with Top outside the sacred precincts. But, somehow, 
her heart beat so high with rainbow-tinted fancies, she was altogether un- 
conscious of anything amiss in the situation. If not within the very courts 
of the wonderful palace, the very penetralia of the Penates, she was very 
near the goal ; nearer than she had ever been before. She could almost 
look in— she could almost see the shining garments and gloriously bright 
faces of the beings she envied, the beings who lived that life so far above 
her own. She had come thus far ; she waited at the gate,' and some day 
the great doors would be flung wide open for her; she would cross the thresh- 
old. But not alone. One would bear her company who was ever an honored 


22 the LION'S SHARE. 

guest there, and in many another home of wealth and fashion and in- 
fluence. 

These thoughts transferred their suppressed rapture into the expression 
of her face— into cheeks dazzling for joy— into eyes swimming in lustre— 
into a mouth wreathed into curves of exquisite transport. She was beau- 
tiful. 

A number of young gallants came crowding about the gate. They 
stood in the plentitude of checked tweeds and light flannel, with the latest 
sheen on a boot, and the latest paragon of a hat — mighty swells, conscious 
of their own superiority, eying this deuced pretty girl, and wondering who 
she was. 

“You ought to know. Rube,” said one. 

“ But, I don’t 1” said Rube. “ I will know before I’m much older though, 
you can depend upon me for that ! She’s with Miss Josey.” 

Mell did not notice them beyond a casual glance. They had about them, 
incontestably, an enormous lot of style, but compared to Jerome, they w-ere 
flat, — awfully flat. She caught a glimpse of him now, this swellest swell 
of the period, coming down the marble steps of the mansio n 

Some one is with him — a lady. Yes, just as she thought, Clara Rutland. 
Here they come. She, so— so— almost ugly, and he, so — so— so Jerome-like. 
That’s the only w^ay to express it. Jerome is more than simply handsome, 
more than merely graceful, more than a man among men — he’s a non-such, 
in a nut-shell ! 

But here he is, almost in speaking distance, and every step bringing 
him nearer. Isn’t he going to be surprised? Isn’t he going to be de- 
lighted ? Isn’t he going to shake her hand and smile that impenetrable 
smile, and — ? 

How is this ? Jerome has come and gone. He did not look at her — he 
did not once raise his eyes in passing. 

Just ahead of this poky little vehicle, where Mell aw^aited the return of 
Miss Josey, stood a lordly equipage, all silver plate and shine, w^ith a w’ell- 
dressod groom standing in front of the champing, restive, mettlesome 
animal, as eager to be off and gone somewhere as the most restless of human 
hearts in a human bosom. 

Into this nobby turnout Jerome assisted Miss Rutland, and then spring- 
ing in himself, grasped the reins from the groom’s hands. For one awful 
moment (to Mell) the horse stood straight upon his hind legs, and then, 
obeying Jerome’s voice, wdio said in the quietest of tones, ‘Go on, Rhesus,’ 
gave one wild plunge and djished ahead, leaving Mell with a stifled feeling, 
as if she w\as buried alive under twenty feet of volcanic ashes. 

But wdiat did it mean — his passing her wdthout a sign of recognition ? 
Jerome might be of a truant disposition, of unstable fancy, and superior in 
his owm strength to most ordinary rules, but he couldn’t help knowing her 
face to face. There was a bare possibility that he had not really seen her; 
his sight, come to think of it, was none of the best, or, at least, 'he habitu- 
ally wore an interesting pince-nez dangling from his button hole, and 
sometimes, though not often, stuck it across the bridge of his well -shaped 
nose wdth telling effect. 

With such arguments, and much wanting to be convinced. Mell recovered 
her equipoise to some extent, managing to hear about half Miss Josey w as 
saying, and to answer only once or twice very wildly at random. Arrived 
at their destination, she assisted her patroness in receiving and arranging 
the baskets ; this important contingent of the day’s proceedings being 
satisfactorily disposed of, they followed the example of the crowd at large 


THE JJOjTS SEAME. 


2.3 


and strolled about in search of some amusement. A more delightful loca- 
tion for a day’s outing it would be hard to find, the world over. On three 
sides of the principal grove, stretched an immense plateau, smooth as a 
flower-garden, and level as a plumb line, and on the fourth side a sudden, 
bold declivity, just as if a giant hand had pulled the clustering lulls a})art 
and left them wide asunder, laying bare the heart of a magnificent ravine. 
In this wild gorge were stupendous cliffs and brinks, shady shelves o’er- 
hanging secluded and romantic nooks, enormous rocks holding plentiful 
treasures in moss and lichen, singularly constructed mounds, probably the 
remaining deposit of a prehistoric race, wild flowers in variety, wild scenery 
in perfection, and a beautiful stream of running water, wherein disported 
finny tribes in abundance. Nothing in the liighest art of gardenesquo 
could produce such results as this. A mere ramble amid such scenes of 
diverse picturesqueness — nature’s wear and tear in moods of passion — 
amounts to a study of geological architecture under favoring conditions. 

Mell loved nature, but not as she loved Jerome. Her brains were 
crammed with wild speculations in regard to him, which accounts for tho 
fact that she had no mind on that eventful day to invest in all those won- 
derful manifestations of nature’s power and nature’s mystery. 

During their circuitous meanderings, two young men joined Miss .Josey 
an<l were duly presented to \\^y protege. They were fine young fellows, and 
very pleasant, too, but Mell continued so pre-occupied in the vain racking 
of her brain, trying to imagine what had become of Jerome and Clara Rut- 
land, that she did not catch their names, and replied to their effoi*ts at 
conversation with monosyllabic remarks. One of them, a merry-tempered, 
straightforward, stalwart young chap, armed with rod and bait, asked her, 
with a flattering degree of w^armth, if she wouldn’t go with them a-fishing; 
but reflecting if she did so, she w'ould in all likelihood be out of the way of 
seeing Jerome for hours to come, Mell declined without circumlocution, 
glad to get rid of him on the pretext of having promised to assist Miss 
Josey in her onerous duties, as commissary of subsistence. Discouraged, 
tlie young fisherman bowed and left. 

“ Such a pretty girl,” he remarked to his companion. “ It’s a pity she 
doesn’t know what to say !” 

Think of Mell Creecy not knowing what to say ! Tho girl who was always 
'saying things nobody else had ever thought of saying. Such is the pretty 
pass to which an unhappy love may bring the brightest girl ! And, after 
all, she saw absolutely nothing of Jerome uhtil all those w\agon upon wagon 
loads of baskets had been ransacked,^ and their tempting contents emptied 
out upon the festive board, giving foihh grateful suggestions of the coming 
: 5»iid-day^eal. ^ . 

While squeezing lemons, flushed and more than ever anxious, deft of 
hand, but uneasy in mind, the buggy containing Jerome and Miss Rutland 
dashed into the grove. 

“ We’ve been all the w^ay to Pudney,” called out the young lady, holding 
up to view^ some tied-up boxes, ‘‘and here are the prizes.” 

“ All right,” responded Miss Josey, “but do let us have the ice. The 
prizes are of no consequence to a famishing people, but the dinner is, and- 
we are about ready.” 

“ She’s powerfuily interested in the prizes,” commented a girl at Mell’a'. 
elbow, “but she has a good right to be.” 

“ Why ?” inquired Mell. ' ' ’ ' 

“ Because she is going to be crowned queen of love and beauty.” 

“ How do you know ?” 


24 


THE LI02TS SHAHE. 


. “Tve put things together, and that’s the way they sum up to me. That 
young man with her can beat all of our boys, and he’s going to crown her.” 
,, “Is he?” ejaculated Mell. 

j Let him dare to do it ! Before Jerome Devonliough should place a victor’s 
crown on Clara Rutland’s h(;ad, she would — well, what would she do? 

Anything muttered Mell, between her teeth. 

Poor Mell ! She had been to such an expensive school and learned so 
many things, and not one of them was of the slightest use to her in this 
sore strait. Could there not be established a new school for girls, differing 
materially from the old; founded upon a more adaptable basis, tauglit 
after a hitherto unknown method, and including prominently in its cur- 
riculum of studies, that branch of knowledge whose acquisition enables a 
woman to bear long, to suffer in silence, and in weakness to be strong ^ 
these are the practical issues in a woman’s daily life, and although in such 
a school she might not get her money’s worth in German guftturals and 
French verbs, she would, at least, have indulged in a less reckless expendi- 
ture of time in obtaining useless knowledge. 

But let us not blame the schools over much, and v.dthout a just discriuii- 
nation. Not all the fault lies at their door. Something there is amiss 
among the girls themselves. It may be, that they love and hate, and talk 
too much, even in one language. 

In a girl of Mell’s temperament, love would not have been love, lacking 
jealousy, and its twin-feeling, revenge. Flore’s the pity, Mell ! 

That picnic dinner w'as splendid. Everybody enjoyed it but Mell, and 
it was not the young fisherman’s fault tliat she did not. Although ho 
was in attendance upon another young lady, wdio seemed to know what to 
say, and said it incessantly, he kept an eye on Mell, and proffered her 
every tempting dish he could lay his hands upon. To no purpose; for Mell 
could not eat. She tried, and the very first mouthful paralyzed her ability 
to swallow. It w^as altogether as much as she could do to keep from sob- 
bing aloud in the faces of all these oinniverous, happy people. What made 
it all the worse, at breakfast time she had been happier than thcy~too 
happy, in fact, to eat, and now, here at dinner, she was too miserable. 

And there sat the author of ail her misery, not tw'elve feet distant, per- 
fectly oblivious to her proximity, nay, her very existence. Not by any 
f chance did he ever look toward her, or show any consciousness of her pres- 
^ence. So devoted and so marked were his attentions to that uninteresting 
;and anything but attractive Clara Rutland, that Mell heard it commented 
upon on all sides. These two, so sutlicient unto themselves, were among 
vth.e first to leave the festal board and wander off in sylvan haunts. Anon, 
:all appetites w^ere satisfied, and amid tlie buzzing of * tongues and boister- 
..ons flashes of merriment, the multitude again dispersed. Unol>served and 
:;in a very unenviable frame of mind, tlie unhaj>py Mell stole av/ay to Iht- 
; S(tf. The paramount desire of her wounded spirit was to get beyond the 
ken of human eye. In a hidden recess screened by an overhanging rock, 

: she sat down, the prey of such discordant and chaotic thoughts as wear 
.away, in time, the bulwarks of reason. It was yesterday, no, the day 
before, no, longer, that he had called upon God to witness ‘that she alone 
was dear to him, she only precious in his sight, and now, how stands the 
f mse ? Ah, dear God, you heard him say it ! Oh. All-seeing Eye, you have 
looked upon him this day, and will not a lightning bhist from an indig- 
' naiit Heaven palsy the false tongue, whose words have no more meaning 
] than loose rubble 1 

Into the heaviness of these thoughts, growing heavier with access of bit- 


TRE LION'S SHARE. 25 

tornpss as (he moraents sped, there came the ringing tones of a voice — a 
voice well known to Mell. 

Shaking off her lethargy and looking out from her hiding place, she be- 
held the object of all these harrowing retiections, grasping xVliss Rutland’s 
two hands in his own, as they together, and laughingly, descended a pre- 
cipitous declivity. Once down, they proceeded with access of laughter, to 
push their way through a tangle of brushwood. To get out of this into tluj 
beaten path, they must necessarily advance in the direction of her place of 
concealment, and, devoured with jealousy, inflamed with distrust, tortured 
with the cruel madness of love, Mell determined to satisfy herself on the 
spot, as to whether Jerome’s avoidance was premeditated or unintentional. 
Just as the couple emerged from their nether difficulties, and stood on ch'ar 
ground and firm footing, Mell suddenly stepped forth upon the same path, 
confronting them face to face. Miss Rutland did not speak. Mell knew 
she would not, although they had attended the same boarding school for 
years, lived in the same house, and graduated in the same class, where Miss 
Rutland, unlike herself, achieved no distinction of self-merit; being content 
to be accounted distinguished through the sepulchre of a dead father. 

Mell did not expect recognition from her in such a place at such a time ; 
for the neighboring rocks were alive with the best families in the 
county, and Clara was one of those feeble brained persons, who have minds 
suited to aU purposes, save use and knowledge of that kind which may 
be put on and off as a movable garment. Such creatures, tossed about 
helplessly on the billows of circumstance, keep one linger on the public 
pulse, and know you, or know you not, according to its beat. For all 
this, Mell cared nothing in that supreme moment. One swift glance at 
Clara, and after that every faculty of her mind and body was centered 
on Jerome. He was evidently surprised at being nearly run over by 
this blustering and blowsy young lady, but beyond that. — nothing. He 
looked her full in the face, the unknowing look of a total stranger. 
The result of tliis look was to Mell calamitous. A waving blankness 
came before her sight, her knees trembled, her strength seemed pourt-d 
out like water, and staggering to a tree, she caught hold ol it for support. 

“ Cut — cut, dead !” 

This, after all taat had passed between them, was simply brutal. But 
the despised and slighted country girl was only momciitarily stunned, 
not crushed. Out of the throes of her wounded pride and injured aflv'c- 
tion, there burst forth the devouring flames of a flery and passionate 
nature, incapable of any luke-warmness in emotion. Her eyes dilated, 
her fingers twitched, her face set like a flint, her lip curled in scorn, and 
she shook her clenched fist at Jerome’s retreating figure. 

“ Contemptible cow’ard ! Miserable trickster ! Mliat have T ever done, 
that you should refuse to speak to me in the presence of Clara Rutland d’ 

Her bosom heaved; she sobbed aloud, and shook her fist again. 

“I’ll make you sorry for this ! I’ll get even with you, yet !” Yfords, 
whose fierce earnestness embodied a prophesy, and w’ere followed by a 
prayer : 

“Oh, God, only give me the power to make him feel it, and I ask no 
more ! 1 care not wffiat then befalls me !” 

This paroxysm of passion swept over her as a besom of destruction, 
leaving her quenched as tow, white, unnerved, quite pitiful and hushed. 
She sank to the ground and into a state of semi-unconsciousness. 

Some one coming near, some one lifting her into a sitting posture, some 


26 


THE LION'S SHARE. 


one pouring cold water upon her head, and holding something to her nose 
aroused her. 

“ That’s right,” said the young fisherman, “open your eyes — open them 
wide! It’s nobody but me. I wouldn’t tell another soul, for I know you 
wouldn't want the mischief of a fuss made over it. But how did you come 
to pitch over ?” 

“ I did not come to pitch over,” said Mell, bewildered, “ did I ?” 

“ Of course you did ! I had been looking for you for ever so long, and 
standing on top there, I happened to look down, and saw you lying here. 
And you never will know how scared 1 was, for, at first, I thought you 
were dead. Gad, didn’t I make tracks, though, after I got started ! But, 
drink a little more of this, and now, don’t you feel set up again ?” 

“ Considerably so,” said Mell, trying, too, to look set up. He was so kind, 
and she, poor, bruised thing, so grateful. This little word, kind, so often 
upon the lip — upon yours and mine, and the lips of our friends, as we en- 
counter them socially on our pilgrimage day by day, is only at certain 
epochs in our own lives fully understood, and deservedly cherished deep 
down in the heart. And yet, so few of us can be great, and so many of 
us could be kind if we would, and oftener than we are. 

“ I know just why you toppled,” proceeded Mell’s kind rescuer. 

“ But I didn’t topple !” again protested Mell. 

“ Did you fall down on purpose ?” 

“ No. I did not fall at all, as far as I know.” 

‘ ‘ Exactly 1 those are the worst kind — the falls you can’t tell anything 
about.” 

So they are. Her’s had not been far in space — she remembered it all 
now, with an acute pang— but, oh, so far in spirit I 

“You could walk now a little, couldn’t you?” 

“ I think I could,” said Mell. 

She got upon her feet with his assistance. 

“You are shaky, yet.” 

“A little shaky,” Mell admitted. 

“Then take my arm.” 

She took it, as a wise being takes the inevitable all through life, submis- 
sively, and without saying much about it. 

They walked slowly, and the young follower of dear old Ike watched his 
companion’s every step, with a solicitude bordering on the fatherly. 

‘ • What do you suppose I am going to do with you, now ?” 

She could not imagine. 

“ Give you something to eat— not that only, make you eat it ! I gave 
you enough at dinner time, if you had only eaten it, ‘but you left all my 
goody-goodies untasted.” 

“And you unthanked,” added Mell, with a ghost of her old smile, and a 
soupQon of her old sprightliness. 

“ No matter about that ! Only, I was worried that you could not eat, 
and I know the reason why.” 

Did he ? Did he know it ? The girl at his side dreaded to hear his next 
words. 

“ Miss Josey had been working you to death all the morning. I saw you 
how you staved around and looked after evervtiiing, while Miss Josey^sat 
on one side with her hands folded. She’s good at that! She never does 
anything herself but reap all the glory of other people’s successes. The very 
worst of these picnics is, that a few do all of the work, and the many ail 
the enjoying. Now, you— you haven’t had much of a time, have you ?” _ 


THE LION'S SHAHE. 


27 


She had not, but no girl in her right mind is going to confess, out and 
out, that she havsn’t had a good time, even in the Inferno. 

“Rather slow, perhaps,” answered Mell, putting it as mildly on a 
strained case, as the case would bear, “but there’s nobody to blame for it, 
but myself. If I wasn’t such a fool in some respects, I might have had a— 
a perfectly gorgeous time. You would have given me aU the good time 
a girl need to look for.” 

“ But you wouldn’t let me !” 

“Well, you see,” explained Mell, warming with her subject, “I had 
promised Miss Josey — ” 

“Never promise her anything again!” 

“ I don’t think I will 1 But, as I was saying, I promised her to come 
and take Miss Rutland’s place — to come for that very purpose, and when I 
make a promise, however hard, I’m going to keep it.” 

“ Bravo for you 1 Not every girl does that.” 

“ Every high-principled girl does.” Her tones were severely uncompro- 
mising. 

'•'‘Ought to, you mean,” rejoined her companion, with an incredulous 
laugh. 

“No — does r 

Light words, lightly- spoken, lightly gone 1 Alas! How these bubbles 
of talk, subtle as air, come back home after a time, to twit us with scorn, 
to taunt us with falsity, to impute wrong unto us, to arraign, to accuse, 
to denounce, to condemn out of our own lips. 

“Here we are,” said Mell’s companion, still laughing at the idea of a 
young woman thinking it necessary to hold tight to her word. “ Here we 
are. Now sit right down here and rest your head comfortably against this 
ti*ee. Ill be back in a twinkling.” 

So he was, with a plate in his hand filled with edibles, and a bottle of 
sparkling wine. 

“Eat,” commanded this eminently practical young man; “eat and 
drink. That’s all you need now to fetch you round completely.” 

This settled the question, and settled it most judiciously and satisfac- 
torily. The solid food proved a balm of comfort to that desolate goneness 
within her, which Mell had wrongly ascribed as due entirely to the vol- 
canic derangement of her heart ; and the strong wine sped through her 
veins a draught of health, a cordial to the mind, a rosy elixir of life. 

Mell began to take some interest in her companion and her present sur- 
roundings. She recognized in them a certain claim to her consideration, 
and a certain charm. This young stranger was a gentleman in looks and 
bearing ; he had some manliness in his nature, nevertheless, (Mell felt down 
on gentlemen) and a heart as brimming full of charity as St. Vincent de 
Paul, himself. He was not ashamed among all his fine friends, to speak 
to a simple country girl, who, destitute of fortune, had nothing to commend 
her but inate modesty and God-given beauty. So far from being 
ashamed, he was ministering to her wants as no one had ever ministered 
to them before — as kindly and courteously as if she were in every respect 
his equal in social standing. Jerome would not speak to her, and this 
gentleman, in her weakness, held the cup to her lips, and put the food into 
her mouth with his own hands. 

“I’ll pray for him this very night,” thought Mell, and moistened the 
thought with a grateful tear. 

But, long before the edibles were consumed, every vestige of a tear had 
disappeared from Mell’s eyes, and she was talking back to this pattern of 


28 


TEE LIOES SHARE. 


a gentleman, as few girls of her age knew so well how to do. The blood 
rushed back to her pallid cheeks, witchery to her tongue, magic to her 
glance. 

“Don’t be olfended,” she remarked to him, with enchanting candor, 
after they had become the best of friends ; “ but I did not hear your name 
this morning, and I have not the slightest idea who you are. ” 

“ Have you the slightest desire to know ?” 

“ Indeed I have ! You can’t imagine — the very greatest desire !” 

“ Then let me refresh your memory somewhat. Do you recall a pug- 
nosed, freckle-faced, bull-headed youngster, who used to pommel Jim Green 
into blue jelly, every time he wanted to lift you over the swollen creek or 
carry your school-bag, or — ” 

“ I do ; I remember him Avell. But you — you are not Kube Rutland 

“ Then I wish you’d tell me who 1 am ! I’ve been thinking I was Rube 
Rutland for a good many years now’ — for I am older than I look.” 

“ And to think I did not know you !” exclaimed Mell. 

“ And to think I did not know youP exclaimed Rube. “That’s what 
gets me ! I wms asking everybody and in all directions who that stunning 
girl was, with — ” 

“ Well,” inquired Mell, laughing, I’d like to know what 

is stunning about me.” 

“ With the sweetest face I ever looked into.” 

This reply caused Mell’s eyes, intently fixed upon the speaker, to drop 
with rare gxnce to meet Llxe maiden’s blush upon her cheek. A perfectly 
natural action, it v/as for that reason and others, a very effective one. 

‘ ‘When I found out who you w^re,” pursued Rube, studying the face he 
had praised, seeing it glorified by his praises, “ I fairly froze to ^liss Josey, 
W’anting so much to renews our acquaintance, and when you had no wmrd 
of w’elcome for an old friend, and gave me the cold shoulder with such a 
vengeance, I was cut all to pieces over it. Fact ! I couldn’t enjoy fishing, 
and I feel bad yet !” 

“ You might have known I did not recognize you,” said Mell, lifting her 
eyes. “ I cannot tell you how glad I am, Mr. Rutland.” 

“ Jfr. Rutland ! It used to Rube.” 

“ And shall be Rube again, if you so desire I Rube, I am just delighted 
that you’ve come back home !” 


CHAPTER IV. 

EVEN. 

So far, she had dallied innocently enough with her old playfellow’; neither 
seeking to please nor deceive, spreading no nets of enchantment, nicely 
baited, to entrap the fancy of this agreeable 3mung man (rich too), w’ho w’as 
as frank in nature and as transparent in purpose, as physically muscular 
and daring. 

At three o’clock, !Miss Josey can>e to sound the horn for the races, and 
the crow d came surging back. Old and young, big and little, the cream of 
the county and its yeomanry, a congregation of the mass, a segregation of 
the cliques, mounting high into the hundreds. The order of the Grange 
was then at the zenith of its fame and pow’er. 

Tlie crowd, as we have said, came surging back. The best of the fun 
was yet to come. Mell roused herself and looked about her. Here w’ere 
other girls with swx'et faces, and many of them, as she wasaw^are, possessed 


TEE LION'S SHARE, 


29 


of those heavier charms of worldly substance which oftentimes outweigh 
the sweetest of faces. None of them must lure him from her. He should 
stick to her, now, come what would. The careless beauty, the ingenuous 
and undesigning woman, is immediately transformed into a greedy monop- 
olist, a wily fox, a cunning serpent, a contriving, intriguing, manoeuvring 
strategist, bent upon mischief, who will play a deep game and stoop to the 
tricks of the trade, and shift, and dodge, and shuffle, and aim to bring 
down, by fair means or foul, the noble quarry. 

Eye, lip, tongue, mind, heart, soul, the graces of youth, the allurements 
of beauty, the treasures of a cultivated mind, and all those sweet mysteries 
of sense which float in the atmosphere between a young man and the 
maiden of his fancy, were put in motion to bear upon Rube's case. 

He did not move ; no wonder ; gorged on sweets, Rube had neither power 
nor inclination to be gone. 

After a little, a group of young men stationed themselves at a given point, 
not far from where this couple sat. They had been into an adjacent farm- 
house and changed their clothes, and now appeared in knee pants, red stock- 
ings, and white jackets, a striking and interesting accessory to an already 
animated and glowing landscape. In this group of picturesque figures 
Jerome wns conspicuous. Jerome looked well in anything, and generally 
well to everybody. 

Not so, to-day. 

To one pair of eyes, not distant, he now loomed up blacker in broad day- 
light than the blackest Mephistopheles in a howling Walpurgis night. 

He saw Rube beside her, and she noted his start of surprise. 

“ Plave a care !” cogitated Mell. “ There may be surprises in store for 
you — greater than this and not so easily brooked.” 

She turned her back upon him and gave her whole attention again to 
Rube. The first duty of a woman is to respect herself, the second duty of 
a woman is to enforce the respect of others. Some of these days Jerome 
i)evoQhough wmuld be only too glad if she would deign to permit him to 
speak to her. 

“ Aren’t you going to take part ?” she asked her companion. 

“ No ; I’m not in trim, and it’s no use trying to beat Devonhough.” 

“ You could beat him,” said she. She spoke with confidence and 
seductively. 

“You are awfully complimentary,! declare! Do you wish me to run, 
Melville?” 

“I do. Yes, Rube, I wish it particularly. Why should this stranger 
carry off the palm over our own boys ?” 

“ For the best of reasons. He deserves to carry it off. Devonhough can 
out-run, out-leap, out-ride, out-do anything in the county.” 

“Except 2/ow,” again insinuated Mell. 

“Say! what makes you believe so strong in me ?” 

“ Nothing makes me, but — I cannot help it !” 

At this point, dear reader, if you are a man, and happily neither blind, 
nor deaf, nor over eighty years of age, take Rube’s seat for a moment, at 
Mell’s feet. Let her tell you in the sweetest tones, that she cannot help be- 
lieving in yoii strong — let her bend upon you a glance sweeter than the 
tones, stronger than the words, and then say, honestly, don’t you feel, as 
Rube did at this juncture, mighty queer ? 

Under the spell, her victim stirred— -he lifted himself slowly toward her, 
inquiring in a low voice, but with intense energy ; 

“ Melville, are you fooling me ?” 


30 


THE LIONiS SHARE, 


“Fooling you !” she ejaculated, in soft reproach. “ Would I fool you, 
Rube ? Is that your opinion of me f You think, then — but tell me, Rube, 
why do you think so ? — that those early days are less dear to me than to yov 
•^their memory less sweet ?” 

“ I have thought so,” murmured he in great agitation, “because I have 
not dared to think otherwise — until nowy 

And into his great soul there entered, then and there, the ineffable beati- 
tude of the true believer. 

Oh, wicked, wicked Mell ! One little hour ago, and you had forgotten 
his very existence ! Is the Recording Angel, who stands above your head 
up there, off duty, that you should dare to do it ? Or, will it help your 
case ill the day of reckoning, that deception foul as this, has been raised 
by clever women into the dignity of a fine art, and goes on among them 
all the while, as inexpugnable as an Act of Congress ? 

“ Melville, I will run this race — run it to please you.” 

“ I knew you would ! And believe me. Rube, nothing could pdease me 
more.” 

“ Suppose I should win,” said Rube, “ what then ?” 

“You will be the hero of the day, and — ” Mell halted very prettily, but 
finally brought it out in sweet confusion, “ and maybe I would wear a 
crown.” 

“By my troth, you shall I But what of me ? I take no stock in crowns 
like that. If I should win, Mell, may I name my own reward ?” 

“You may.” 

“It will be a big one.” 

“ The man who runs and wins generally gets a big one.” 

“ But understand my meaning, Mell, understand it perfectly. I do not 
want the shadow of a doubt to rest upon this matter. Who shall decide 
when lovers disagree ?” 

He had been toying with a twig broken from a flowering b;iy ; it was 
stripped of foliage, save a few green leaves at the end, and with this he 
lightly touched the dimpled hand reposing upon her lap. 

“ That is what I would ask. Will you give it to me, Mell, if I win the 
race ?” 

Mell trembled violently, but she said ‘ ‘ yes. ” 

That was natural enough. When a woman says yes, it is time to tremble. 
Even Rube knew that. 

“You mean it? It a solemn promise ! One of those promises you 
always keep 1” 

Again Mell trembled violently — worse than before, and again said “ yes.” 

That barely audible yes, had scarcely died upon her white lips when Rubo 
sprang to his feet, and casting off his fawn colored flannel jacket and light 
waist-coat, tossed them in a careless heap upon the ground at her feet. 
Divested of those outer garments, the symmetrical curves of his young 
manhood, and the irregular curves of his 'honest face showed up to great 
advantage in white linen and a necktie— the latter a very chic article of its 
kind, consisting of blazoned monstrosities of art, in bright Vermillion on a 
background of whife — blood on snow. 

“ You must excuse my shirt-sleeves,” said Rube, during the process of 
disrobing. “ I have no costume, so must do the best I can under the cir- 
cumstances.” 

He next made off with his suspender&. began tugging at his shirt in an 
alarming fashion. 


THE L10:rs SHARE. 


“ TThat are you going to do V' iiiterroguted Meli, with a iiorrified express 
sion. “ You are not going to — ” 

“No,” said Rube, laughing, and coloring too. ‘-I'm not going to take 
it off. I’m only going to — ” tugging all tiie while— “ make myself into a 
sailor boy, or flowing Turk, or a loose Brave, or a something or other, (o 
keep pace w'ith those brocaded Templars, Hospitallers, and Knights ol the 
Golden Fleece over there. Come, now, can't you fix a fellow up 

“ Fix a fellow up ?” echoed Mell, helplessly. She never had ' fixed a fel- 
low up,’ and she knew less about it than the sacred writings of Zoroaster. 

“ Y"es,” said Rube. “ Give me those ribbons you've got on — fix me up, 
put your colors on me, don’t you see ?” 

Mell did see at last, and greatly relieved, proceeded to do his bidding. 
The sash from her own supple waist was deftly transferred to his, and a 
knot of ribbons at her throat, after many trials, was finally disposed of to 
their mutual liking. 

“ Now, don’t 1 look as well as any of 'em ?” inquired the improvised 
knight, quite carried away with the fixing-up process. 

“As well, and better,” she assured him. 

“Well, then,” he held out his hand to her, “ let us seal the compact. If 
I win, Melville ” 

“ Yes,” said Mell, hurriedly. 

“ But if I fail.” 

“You cannot fail, not if you love me I” She spoke impatiently, and 
with flashing eyes. “A one-legged man could not, if he loved me ! Love 
finds a way, and love which cannot find a way is not love.” 

“ Enough,” said Rube, below his breath. “ Y^ou will know whether I 
love you or not.” 

Their hands were still clasped together in bond, until, perceiving they 
had become a subject of curiosity to those about them. Rube at length 
allowed Mell to withdraw^ hers, whereupon he turned off witli a light laugh; 
that proficuous little laugh, which amid life's thick-corning anxi( ties, great 
and small, serves so many turns, and turns so many ways, and covers up 
within us so much that is no laughing matter. 

Rube laughed and mingled with the crowd. 

“ Come out of that !” shouted an urchin. It was the signal for a regular 
broadside of raillery and chaff from the pestiferous small boy, a many- 
tongued volume out of print, and circulating in open space at the rate of a 
thousand editions to the minute. 

Nothing abashed, amid groans and jeers, and gibes, and hoots, Rube took 
his place with the others, tlio only make-shift knight among them. 

“ For pity’s sake, look at Rube,” exclaimed Miss Rutland, “ actually in 
his shirt sleeves ? Rube, don't ! Y^ou are not in costume, and you spoU 
the artistic effect.”. 

“ Look sharp,” came Rube’s laughing reply, “or I'll spoil the artistic 
result, also.” 

“ Don’t get excited over the prospect,” commented Jerome, nodding his 
head reassuringly at Miss Rutland, “there's not the remotest craise for 
alarm.” 

Miss Rutland sat on a tub turned bottom side up, which had served its 
purposes in lemonade. Jerome took his ease on a wagon-body, also turned 
bottom side up, which had served its purposes as a table. Such are the 
phases of a picnic — and one picnic has more phases than all of Jupiter’s 
moons. 

“ The tortoise,” pursued Jerome, now turning his attention more partic- 


32 


THE LION'S SHARE. 


ularly to Rube, “ is a remarkable animal, but like thee, ob friend of my 
soul, ‘thou drone, thou snail, thou slug,’ not much on a run. How much 
is it I can beat thee, Rube, every time and without trying — three lengths?” 

“Just you keep quiet,” retorted Rube. “ The man so sure, let him look, 
to himself; the man who blows, let him beware ! In all our trials at s})eed 
there never was before anything to win, and I’m a fellow who can’t run 
to beat where there's nothing to win.” 

“ A tremendous issue is involved on the present occasion,” announced 
Jerome in withering scorn. “A lot of paper flowers strung on a piece of 
wire to stick on a girl's head, and when it’s all over and done, I don’t 
know who feels most idiotic or repentent, the girl w^ho wears ’em or the 
fellow who won ’em. I’ve been there ! I know. I hope a more enduring 
crown than this perishable travesty will fall to my lot !” 

“ So ao I!” prayed Rube aloud, and with devoutness. 

“ Oh, Rutland, Rutland !” exclaimed bis friend, going off into an uncon- 
trollable fit of laughter. “There isn’t anything in this wide world half so 
deliciously transparent as your intentions, unless — unless,” subjoined 
Jerome, as soon as he could again command his voice, “ unless it be Miss 
J osey’s j uvenality. ” 

“ ilush laughing,” said Rube, drawing near and speaking low. “See 
here, Devonhough, you don’t care the snap of your finger about this affair; 
you’ve said as much ; so hold back, dear old fellowq won’t you ? Give me 
a cliance !” 

“Ha ! ha ! ha !” roared Jerome, again going off. “ ^ Hear old fellow.'' 
That’s rich ! Very dear old fellow, never so dear before !” 

“ Oh, go along with you,” responded Rube crossly. “Go to the devil 
until you can stop laughing !” 

He was about to turn off in high dudgeon, when Jerome with an effort 
pulled himself together and soberly considered the subject. ‘‘Hold on, 
then ! I’d like to oblige you Rutland, of course I would, but there’s Clara ! 
She expects me to— ” 

“ Hang Clara !” said Rube, with the natural unfraternalness of a 
brother. 

“ That’s what I propose to do,” answered Jerome. “ Hang her with a 
wreath !” 



“ Rub-a-dub-dub I” beat the drum. 

“ Into place !” shouted a stentorian voice. 

“ Ready ?” 

‘ ‘ One — two — Boom !” 

They were off in fine style, Jerome quickly showing the lead, and Rube 
gaining gradually upon him towards the middle of the course. To one 
spectator it was more interesting than the sword-dance, more exciting than 
a steeple-chase. But the eager spectators at the starting place could see 
very little beyond a certain point, owing to the crowd of boys and men 
which lined the sides of the track and closed up as the runners passed. 
They could hear vociferous yelling and screaming, sometimes tlie outcry, 
“Devonhough ahead I” and then, again, “ Hurrah for Rutland !” and, at 
the last, a tremendous whooping and cheering and clapping of hands, in 
which no name was at first distinguishable. Then, amid the unbounded 
enthusiasm of the multitude, the victor was lifted above the heads of the 
crowd and brought back in triumph. 

Mell had scarcely moved from the spot where Rube left her. She had 


THE LION 8 SHARE. 


33 


had some time for reflection, and had profited by it, to such an extent, that 
she now felt quite miserable. That v/as the way with Mell, and continues 
to be the way with MelPs kind. They make a practice of hitching together 
the cart of Unthought and the sure-footed beast Thiiik-twice ; the cart in 
front, the horse in the rear; and if, under such circunistauces the poor 
brute, nine times out of ten, lands his living freight into very hot water, 
too hot for their tender feelings, who is to blame for it ? 

Some very strange thoughts coursed through the giiTs mind. Now, sup- 
pose it was Rube seated up there on the heads of an idolizing populace, and 
it bvcame incumbent upon her to fulfill that promise so rashly and foolishly 
piv«m, could she do it? No 1 No I She would rather live a thousand • 
years and scratch an old maid’s head every hour in all those years, than 
marry Rube Rutland I 

It made her sick to think about it ; every nerve in her body recoiled; 
every good instinct within her lifted up a dissentient voice. 

“ Can’t you see who it is ?” She inquired hoarsely of her nearest neigh- 
bor, a much be-banged girl, who peered above the crowd from the top of 
a dry-goods box, with the cute expression of a fluffy-faced puppy, “ Can’t 
you see ?” 

“ Not distinctly yet, but I think it is that young strangpr^-. Rube Rut- 
land’s friend; I’m pretty sure it is.” 

“ Thank God I” muttered Mell. She was ambitious-, but; she was not yet 
the hardened thing that ambition makes. 

“My goodness!” suddenly exclaimed the girl on, the box. “ It isn’t 
that strange young man ! It is Rube Rutland ! I can see him dis- 
tinctly now. Oh, how glad I am! It is Rube Rutland, boys.” “Rut- 
land forever !” shouted back the boys. 

In all that big crowd there was but one heart not glad. Rube was in 
the house of his friends, the other a stranger.. County pride. State pride, 
loe-al prejudice, all sided with Rube. Jerome was an alien. He had come 
there to beat ‘ ‘ our boys, ” and one of our boys> had i beaten him. Huzza I 
Huzza ! Shout the victory ! 

They did shout it with a noise whose loudness^ was enough to bring 
down the roof of heaven. Never had there been such a victory at a Grange 
picnic before. 

Deafened by the noise Mell slunk back into The wood. All color forsook 
lier face once more. She had played for high stakes, this ambitious girl ; 
she had won her game, and in the winning cursed her own folly and 
realized with a pang of unspeakable bitterness, that a victory for which 
one pays too dear a price is the worst kind of defeat. 

Released from the well-meant persecutions of his many admirers. Rube 
asked for his coat and things, and a fan, and was next subjected to a state- 
ment from the master of ceremonies. 

“ With this wn-eath,” explained thatindividUal,\“ you may crown the lady 
of your choice, crowm her queen of Love and Beauty, and it will be her 
prerogative to aw'ard the other prizes wmn on this occasion. "Who is the 
fortunate lady ?” 

Every wmman in hearing distance held her breath, ever}' man opened 
wide his ears. 

“ Miss Mellville Creecy.” 

“Whom did he say?” queried Miss Josey, tremendously excited and not 
quite certain she had heard aright. Miss Josey was nibbling at a peach; 
she nibbled no juaore... Though blessed .with an .excellent appetite, Miss 


34 THE LION’S 8HABE. 

Josey in her hungriest moment was more eager to hear something new than 
eat something nice. 

“ Did you say Mell, Rube 

“ I did,” said Rube. 

It struck the crowd speechless. What ? Rube Rutland, the son of an 
ex-Governor, an ex-Judge, an ex-Senator, dead now, but dead with all his 
titles on him; Rube Rutland, the greatest catch in the State, going to crown 
Mellville Creecy, daughter of that old ignoramus who made “ fritters ” of 
the King’s English, and dug potatoes, and hoed corn, and ploughed in tho 
fields with his own hands ? The thing was preposterous ! It was a thing, 
too, to be resented by his friends and equals. 

Miss Rutland drew her brother aside. 

“ Rube, you cannot mean it I You surely have some sense ! A little, if 
not much ! You can’t crown that obscure girl with the cream of tho 
county, your own personal friends, all around you.” 

“ Can’t 1 ?” said Rube. “I can and will ! The cream of the county may 
goto — anywhere.” Rube closed up blandly: “I will not limit them in 
their choice of locations. That would be not only ungenerous but un- 
gentlemanly. ” 

“Rube,” persisted Miss Rutland, ’“do listen to reason. What wiH 
mother say ? What will everybody say ?” 

“ Say what they darned please 1” 

Rube was first of all a freeborn American — secondly, an aristocrat. 

“What’s the use of being somebody if you’ve got to knuckle down to 
what people say ?” 

“ But you are not obliged to crown anybody,” insinuated Clara. “ Rather 
than crown this low-born girl, make some one your proxy. Jerome 
would — ” 

“ Oh, I have no doubt, with pleasure ! You are a deep one, Clara, but 
you’ll wear no crown this day. Might as well give it up. ” 

So she perceived, and turned off in a rage, first informing him that he 
always had been, and always would be an unconscionable ass. 

“ You have fully decided, then ?” questioned the master of ceremonies. 
“ I have,” Rube told him, beginning to get put out. Pretty Mell might 
well have been a scare-crow, such consternation had she created amongst 
them all. “ I decided some time ago. Will it be necessary for 
me to mount a tree-top and blow a clarion blast before I can make 
you all understand that I am going to crown Mellville Creecy, and 
nobody else ?” 

“ Certainly not. certainly not,” hastily replied the master of ceremonies. 
He too was disappointed; he had a sister. Was there ever a man in power 
who didn’t have a sister ? — who didn’t have a good many, all wanting 
crowns ? 

“Will you make a speech ?” 

* ‘ Nary speech, ” declared Rube, laughing. ‘ I’m not so swift in my tongue 
as my legs ! See here, Cap’n, there’s no occasion for an unnecessary amount 
of tomfoolery about this thing. Some gentleman bring Miss Creecy for- 
ward. I’ll put this gewgaw on her in a jiffy, and that’ll be the end of it I” 

Rube smiled softly to himself. That was very far from being the end of 
it. 

“ Mell! Mell !” screamed Miss Josie, running up \o\\Gr proteg4, the bearer 
©f astonishing news, “you don’t know what's going to happen! You’d 
,, never guess it ! Rube is going to crown you, my pretty darling I You aro 
to be queen of Love and Beauty.” 


TEE LION S SHARE. 




“But, I’d rather not,” said Mell, drawing back. 

‘ ‘ Bather not ?” screamed Miss Josey . ‘ ‘ Did anybody ever before hear of 

a woman who would rather not be a queen— a queen in the hearts of men ?” 

“ I don’t see how you can help it,” continued Miss Josey. Mell did not^ 
either, alas ! “But I don’t wonder you feel a little frightened about it. It 
such a wonderful thing for Rube to do: but Rube has two eyes in his head, 
Rube has, and knows the prettiest girl in the county when he sees her ! 
This thing is going to be the making of you, Mell (rather say the undoing, 
Miss Josey) so don’t be so frightened, but hold your head high, and bear 
your honors bravely, and remember all eyes are upon you. The rest of the 
girls are fairly dying with envy, don’t forget that !” 

This last remark brought Mell to her senses. Not one of them but would 
gladly stand where she stood — gladly put themselves in her shoes if they 
could. Rube was not a mate, as mating goes, to be met with everj'^ day in 
the year. The sugared point of this timely suggestion served Miss Josey’s 
purpose effectually. It stilled the wild throbbing in the girl’s heart, 
brought the blood back to her face, and turned the purple of such 
wondrous hue in her eyes, to the softest black; with intensity of gratifica- 
tion, Jerome himself was forgotten for the nonce. 

Miss Josey, still in a flutter of delight, now proceeded to put on her sash, 
to replace the knot of ribbons at her throat, to pass her hands assuagingly 
across Mell’s wilderness of frolicsome hair* and to put an extra touch or 
two to her simple toilette generally ; whispering words of stimulation and 
encouragement all the while. 

Thoroughly put to rights. Miss Josey planed the girl’s hand into that of a 
very grand personage — the president of the Grange, in fact — who led her 
gallantly to the spot selected for the coronation ceremonies. There stood 
the hero of the day. He advanced a step or two as she drew near, he 
bowed low, and then in a distinct voice with a somewhat heightened color, 
but in his usual simple, straightforward manner, said: “Miss Creecy, I 
beg you will do me the honor to accept this trophy of my victory.” 

Miss Creecy silently bowled her heaxl; he placed the wreath upon it, and 
lol what has become of our rustic maiden ? She is a Queen ! 

Nevertheless, she immediately fell back again into Miss Josey’s hands, 
who hastened to push the crown this way and then that, — forward a little, 
and then backward a little — just one barley-corn this side and just one the 
other; until the magical spot of perfect-becomingness having been reached, 
she wisely let it be. As soon as the crowd caught sight of this bright 
splendor of yellow hair, surmounted by a wTeath of flowers, the shouting 
and yelling re-commenced; and when it was passed with electric swiftness 
from mouth to mouth, that the head of the Rutland family, the owner of 
an honored name and a big estate, had chosen for his queen, not the daughter 
of a rich planter or a great statesman, but a child of the yeomanry, a ripple 
of intense excitement flashed through the multitude, and enthusiasm knew 
no bounds. 

“ Rutland for the people, and the people for Rutland!” was the joyous 
outpouring of the common heart. A sentiment which only subsided occa- 
sionally, to be renewed with increased \igor and manifold cheers. 

“ I see your game,” said the secretary of the Grange to Rube, with a sly 
wink. “ You are going to run for the Legislature ?” 

“ Your penetration surprises me,” returned Rube with a laugh. “ IThat 
a pity the voting couldn’‘t be done now; I’d be wilhng to risk a couple of 
thousand on my own election, if it could!” 


36 


THE LIOH'S SHARE. 


“It’s awfully becoming to her, isn’t it?” inquired Jerome, speaking to 
Clara, and referring to the crown which sat upon the queen’s head. 

“I don’t think so,” returned Clara, “not in the least becoming. It 
doesn’t suit the color of her hair.” 

‘ ‘ Sure enough ! I had forgotten that. We bought it to suit yours, didn’t 
we? It is too bad! but neyer mind; we’ll come in for the second prize, 
eertain.” 

“ Not I !” exclaimed Clara, with a toss of her head. “ It is first or none 
with me. There is something mean, little, contemptible, about a second 
prize, just like all second-rate things! Having failed in securing the 
first, were I in your place, I would not try for the second.” 

■ And she left him, much angered. 

“ Whew!” softly whistled Jerome. “ It strikes me that what pleases one 
woman, doesn’t please another. Why is that ? It also strikes 'me that it’s 
no use trying to please any of ’em. A man can’t; not unless he converts 
himself into a sort of synchronous multiplex machine, and tries seventy-five 
different ways all at once.” 

The stream of people now poured in one direction, — towards royalty. 
Queens differ; but there is ar something about every one of them which 
fetches the crowd. While this one stood hemmed in on all sides, an object 
of curiosity to aU classes and conditions, all eager for a sight of her, some 
eager to be made known to her, others wanting to catch a look, a word, a 
simle, Mell heard some one at her elbow say, softly: 

“ Mellville.” 

Turning, she confronted Jerome. In a flash, her whole appearance 
changed. The moment before she had been a gracious sovereign, accept- 
ing with queenly grace the homage of her loyal subjects. Now, she was 
aa outraged monarch jealous of her rank, standing on her dignity. 

“How dare you, sirl” asked Mell, eyeing him haughtily and drawing 
herself up to her fullest height. “How dare you to speak to me! How 
dare you touch me! I have not the honor of your acquaintance, sir!” 

Jerome was undeniably astonished; but this was not the time, not the 
place to indulge in a feeling of astonishment, or to make an exhibition of 
himself or her. 

“Your Majesty,” said Jerome, with his characteristic coolness, “will 
graoiously pardon me. The crowd is great, it pressed heavily upon all 
sides and I have not been able to resist it.” 

He fell back at once, and Mell bowed, just as if nothing had happened, to 
gentleman, whom the master of ceremonies was in the act of introduc- 
. mg to her. 

In the crush, Jerome encountered Kube. He had been called off on some 

■ matter under discussion among those running the shebang — liube’s way of 
putting it — and was now endeavoring to push his way back to Mell. 

“ How — do, old fellow ?” said Jerome, by way of congratulation. 

“Tip-top !” said Rube, by way of thanks, and seizing his friend’s hand 
he wrung it as if his intention was to wring it clean off. ‘ ‘ You’re a trump !” 
• “ Don’t mention it !” begged Jerome. He began to laugh again. For 

some reason the whole thing was excessively amusing to Jerome. 

“ But I will mention it,” persisted Rube. “ I’ll thank you for it to my 
dying day. It was so self-sacrifieing on your part, considering everything.” 

“Oh, was it? exclaimed his companion, choking down his risibles. 

Well — ah — I don’t exactly feel it that way. A mere trifle.” • 

“ Not to me,” declared Rube. 


THE LION'S SHARE. 


87 


“ Perhaps not to me, either,” conceded Jerome, looking on the subject 
more seriously. “ For Clara — ” 

“ You can patch up Clara,” Rube suggested, soothingly. 

“ Do you think so ? It’s a rankling casus belli at present, I can tell y«u I 
But how about your rustic beauty, eb. Rube ? Is she pleased ? Does she* 
like it r 

“ Pleased ? Like it? You bet she does ! She’s delighted !” 

“ No one has introduced me yet,” Jerome next remarked, quite iueident-/ 
ally. “And I am sure if her Gracious Majesty smiles upon any of her 
loyal subjects it ought to be me.” 

“ That’s so ! So come right along now, ” They reached her side. 

“ Mell, here’s the very best fellow in the world,” said Rube, out of the 
fullness of his heart, forgetting the prescribed forms of etiquette in the 
absorption of warm feeling. 

Mell had noted their approach. She was not taken unawares. She bent, 
her head slightly to the newcomer, she looked him over for a whole 
minute, it seemed, before she opened her lips and said : 

“How do you do, Mr. Very-Best-Fellow-in-the-World ?” 

Those near enough to hear roared with laughter, for the young queen’s^ 
manner made the whole thing so absurdly funny ; and perhaps there is 
nothing a crowd so much enjoys as the taking down of a person whom 
they regard in the light of one much needing to be taken down. 

“His name is Devonhough,” Rube hastened to explain, not relishing 
the laugh against his friend at this particular time by his particular fault. 
“Mr. Devonhough, Miss Creecy. He is my very best friend, Mell. Shake 
hands wdth him.” 

Mell did so; but without the faintest glimmering of a smile, and wdth 
such glacial dignity as fairly charged the atmosphero with iciness. Not 
content with this, she met all his subsequent efforts to cultivate her ac- 
quaintance with the briefest and chilliest repulses. 

Rube was much concerned. He saw dimly that his best friend had not, , 
somehow", made a favorable impression upon his future wife ; but he could 
not tell the why or wherefore. While he wondered within him what he 
could do to put things on a pleasanter footing betw^een them, someone else 
demanded his attention, 

“ See here,” said Jerome, as soon as Rube’s back was turned. “ Ihopeyoii. 
now consider me sufficiently punished. I hope you feel even. 1 hope you 
won’t treat me to any more state airs. I am tired of them. Your Majtisiy, 
let me tell you something. Mark well my w^ords. It is to me, not Rube, . 
you owe your present exaltation,” 

“ Lb /” 

The unsmiling countenance now broke into a ripple of scorn. 

“ What a ridiculous thing for you to say !” 

“ The whole thing has been ridiculous,” said Jerome. “ I never in my 
wffiole life ever enjoyed anything so much. ’Tis the one grain of truth 
which gives point to the ridiculous. Think of Rube, dear fellow, so anxious ^ 
to crown you, knowing nothing, suspecting nothing, begging me nottoma 
fast, and I, so ten thousand times more anxious than he could possibly be, 
to have you crowned. ’’ 

“Yes. Me! Don’t you know, in your heart, Mellville, that I wanted 
you crowned?” 

“ No, I know” nothing of the kind 1 When a man wants a thing done, 
he does it with his ow'n hand ; when be does not want it done, or cares net 


38 


THE LION'S SHAliE. 


much about it, be does it with another man’s band. Had you been anxious 
you would not have left it to Kube.” 

“But with that wreath in my own hand, Mell, I was morally bound to 
put it upon another head.” 

“Ah, indeed 1 Why?” 

Jerome did not answer immediately. When he did, it was with averted 
eyes, and with some impatience, and not in reply to her first question at 
all, but her quick repetition of his own words, “ Morally bound, eh ?” 

“ Yes, Mellville. You forget I am a guest in her mother’s house.” 

“ I do not forget it ! I remember it every hour in the whole twenty-four ; 
but does that make it incumbent upon you to ignore me ? Jerome, look 
me in the face. What is Clara Kutland to you ?” 

V “Nothing!” exclaimed he, savagely, between compressed lips. “Less 
than nothing I A hundred times to-day I have wished her at the bottom 
of-~” 

“There! No use to send her there It’s too late !” 

The knowledge of what she had done, the wretchedness she saw it was 
destined to entail upon her, all this while couchant like a wild beast within 
her, now uprose into her expressive features. Jerome was struck with it. 

“ What do you mean?” he asked. 

“ You will know soon enough,” she responded. 

He stooped to pick up the handkerchief she had dropped, and in restor- 
ing it, his hand, so cool and steady, came in contact with hers, so hot and 
tremulous ; it touched and lingered, lingered long, and clung in a tender 
pressure ; while a voice so low and firm, a voice, oh ! so faint and sweet, stole 
its way into her ear, murmuring but one word, one little, fond word, which 
moved her in the strangest way, which thrilled, yet soothed her. Cooler 
than snow it fell upon her burning cheeks, warmer than a sunbeam into 
her freezing heart. That little game with Rube passed out of her memory. 

But looking up all too soon, she saw him. He smiled upon her. He 
was glad to see that she and Devonhough were getting along quite 
pleiisantly. 

“I wish you would go away !” she suddenly exclaimed, turning upon 
her companion rudely. “ Go back to Clara Rutland ! You have no busi- 
ness here ! I do not believe a word you have said to me ! I yet fail to 
comprehend why a man may not be the master of his own actions.” 

“ Heigh-ho !” sighed Jerome. “Just so it is in life. Just as a man be- 
gins to think he has put everything in order, and settled the question, here 
comes chaos again. You do not understand that, Mell ? Well, I will tell 
yon. Every man has a master— circumstance. On my side, I am surprised 
that you, with all your quickness of apprehension, have not been able to 
see clearer and deeper into this subject. You ought to have known, you 
must have felt that I had some good reason for acting towards you as 
I have to-day. Have you been true to your promise to trust me— and 
trust me blindly ? I fear not. You have been cruelly angry with me ever 
since this morning, when I dared not speak.” 

“ And why was it that you dared not speak ?” demanded Mell, her lip 
curling contemptuously, but with a tremolo movement in her voice. 
“ Does it then require some courage for a man, in your position to speak 
to a poor girl like me ? Rube does not think so. ” 

“ With Rube it is different.” 

“ It is, very different. There is no false pride about Rube.” 

“ And I hope there is none about me. But, Mell, you do not in the least 
understand my position.” 


THE LION'S SUARR 89 

“ I know as much about it as I care to know. Henceforth, Mr. Devon- 
hough, let us be strangers.” 

“ We can never be strangers,” said Jerome. He was growing earnest; he 
spoke very low and with that rapidity of utterance which accompanies ex- 
cited feelings. “This no time nor place, Mell, for such an explanation; 
but here, and now, I will make it. I cannot longer exist under the baa 
of your displeasure. Know then, dear, that I would not speak to you this 
morning for your own sweet sake — not mine. I was driven to it to protect 
your good name, and keep you out of the mouths of those shallow-pated 
creatures, who have nothing else to talk about but other people’s failings. 
IJad Clara Rutland once seen me speak to you— had she for one moment 
suspected the least acquaintance between us, that hydra-headed monster, 
(.’uriosity, would have lifted its unpitying voice in a hundred awkward ques- 
tions : ‘ How did you come to know Mell Creecy ? Where did you meet her ? 
Who introduced you to her ?’ And so on to the end of a long chapter. I 
did not wish to say, for your sake, that I had never met ymu anywhere 
but ill a cornfield. I did not wish to say, for your sake, that we had be- 
came acquainted in a very delightful, but by no means conventional, man- 
ner. I have thought it best, all along, to keep the fact of our acquain- 
tance in the background, until we were brought together in some way per- 
fectly legitimate and customary. Always for your sake, dear, not mine. 
Now you knovr in part ; to-morrow I will make a clean breast of all my 
difficulties; so disperse these clouds, and give me one sweet lock ere I go.” 

Instead of that, Mell swallowed a lump in her throat which felt as big 
as her head. She studiously avoided, for the rest of the day, any further 
speech with Jerome. His explanation was plausible enough on its face ; 
but Mell was in no condition of mind to draw conclusions which might 
stand the test of reason, or be satisfactorily demonstrated on geometrical 
principles ; and nothing that Jerome could say was now calculated to act 
as a sedative on Mell’s nerves. She kept whispering to herself, “ lie feels it, 
yes. he feels it ;” and thus nourished the firmness and the bravado necessary 
to her in the further requirements of her high position. She needed it all, 
and more, when it came to bestowing upon Jerome a handsome pair of spurs, 
as the second prize of the day. Certainly he cared for her, or why this 
glow on his clear-cut face, or why this light in his speaking eyes now ben* ^ 
upon her. Mell turned her head quickly. ' 

“ I can’t understand why you don’t like Devonhough,” Rube remarked, 
noticing the movement. “ I think it odd. He carries things with a high 
liand among the girls, I can tell you. Most all of ’em are dead in love' 
with him.” 

“ And do you wish me added to the list ?” interrogated Mell, finding her- 
self in a tight place, and hardly knowing how to get out of it. 

“ Well, no ; I don’t !” laughed Rube, much appreciating the sly humor 
of the question. 

By seven o’clock the day’s festivities w*ere concluded; and then ensued a 
melting of all hostile elements into a homogeneous mass, all ravenous after- 
iccd-lemonade and home-made cake, and a heterogeneous devouring of the • 
siime ; after wdiich, the crowd, well pleased, but pretty well fagged oiit. 
turned their faces homeward, under a sun still shining, but shorn of its 
hottest beams. 

No one will gainsay the statement that our heroine has made gre; 
social strides in one summer’s day, In the morning a simple couwtry gi 
poor in pocket, humble in rank, unknowm in society, seated beside M 
Josey in the little pony phaeton, full of fair hopes and inspirations ; 


40 


TIIE LION'S SHARE. 


tlie evening the affianced wife of the best-born and most eligible young 
man in the county; returning to the old farm-house in grand styte, leaning 
back on soft cushioiis, beside her future lord, in a flashy open carriage 
drawn by a ravishing pair of high mettled roans. 

Ambitious, indeed, must be that girl not satisfied with this wonderful 
result of one single operation in matrimonial stocks. And yet Mell is not 
happy. She forgets to give heed to what Kube is saying ; she forgets 
almost to answer him back; so full of regret is she for her own lost 
self. She had had a thousand longings to get out of her old self, and 
out of her old life, and now, on the threshold of a new^ existence, Mell 
finds herself with only one desire — just to get back where she came 
from. If only she could — oh ! if only she t^ould, most gladly w'ould this 
lately crowned queen have relinquished the glories of empire,' the spoils of 
captive hearts, the trophies of social triumphs, the high emprise of a bril- 
liant future, only to be simple Mell once more. 

Ah, poor Mell ! Not for sale now. Sold ! 


CHAPTER V. 

PLAYERS ON A STAGE. 

Now, then, here is Thursday. Jerome had said: “You will be on hand 
without fail, Mell; and so will I, and so wdll something else.” 

“ But that something else,” moaned the hapless Mell, bowTd down and 
heart-stricken, “will never be on hand again in the meadow for me, nor 
anywhere else.” 

Saddest of all, she had herself laid the axe to the root of her owm hap- 
piness; she had baited her own hook and caught a big fish; she had pro- 
voked her owm doom, and herself sealed it. 

Kube was not to blame. 

And Jerome— he had made out a good case. Had he loved her less he 
would, perhaps, have acted differently. 

She had digged a pitfall for her owm occupation; and of all comfortless 
and stony places, such pitfalls as this make the hardest lying. 

Out in the narrow' hall, on its own particular peg, hung Mell's white 
, sun-bonnet. She took it down and put it on her head, and w'alked slowly 
/ to the top of the hill. With no intention of going to the meadow herself, 
her feelings demanded lluit she should find out if Jerome was there. ’ 
He was, strolling moodily to and fro, in deep thought. 

He knows now. Kube has told him. He despises her to-day, and ves- 
iterday he had loved her. Look at him down there in the meadow! a beam 
?from the sun, a breath from the hills, a part of the morning, the most 
^glorious expression of nature in all nature’s glory I Observe how^ he walls I 
Note how' he stands still ! Most men know how' to walk, and most meii 
' know how to stand still, after a fashion ; but not after Jerome’s fashion. 
In motion, Jerome is a poem set a-going; standing still, he is grace doing 
nothing. He can lift one hand, and in that ordinary act sow the seed of a 
dozen beautiful fancies; he can wield such mastery over the physical forces 
of expression as has W'ondrous potency to sway the emotions of others. 

So she thought; so she stood, hidden herself from sight, but wdth the 
eadow in full view; and wdiile so thinking, and so standing, drinking him 
with every breath, feeding upon him with her eyes, devouring him wUh 
soul, she, the affianced wife of another 1 


THE LION'S SnAIiE. 


41 


Oh, wicked Mell! 

Jerome grows impatient; ho looks at his watch, and turns incpiiringly 
towards the hill; and Mell flies back to the house as if pursued by fiery 
dragons. For if he but caught sight of her, if he but crooked his finger at 
her, she would go down there, and then— what then ? 

Mell was not blind to her own weakness. Tlie afternoon brought Rube, 
overwhelmingly happy, overwhelmingly devoted. She must take an airing 
with him in his bran new buggy; and while they scoured the country round 
about, Rube was making diligent inquiry as to how soon they might get 
married. Mell caught her breath, and, in the same breath, at a possible 
reprieve. 

“Won’t you give me a little time to think?” she pleaded. “It has 
oome so sudden!” 

“Hasn’t it, though !” cried happy Rube. “Do you half realize the 
romance of the thing, Mellville ? ’Tis like a page out of Knight-Errantry, 
the days of lances and standards, and blood-thrilling adventures, when 
warriors in steel swore by the Holy-rood, and won fair women’s smiles by 
deeds of valor — something very unlike the prosaic happenings of this prac- 
tical modern life. But yesterday a wandering pilgrim, to-day I have 
found a shrine. ‘’Tis a dream!’ I thought, when I opened my eyes this 
morning, ‘ a dream, too sweet to be true! Rube, old fellow,’ I said to 
myself, ‘ you’ve got something to live for now. You must look to your 
ways and improve upon the old ones. There’s a dear little hand tliat 
belongs to you; there’s a pair of blue eyes to watch for your coming; 
there’s a sweet little woman who believes in you, God bless her ! For her 
sake I will run the race of life like a man; for her sweet sake I will 
win it!’ ” 

This was the time for Mell to speak. She wanted to speak, but— she did 
not. There were just exactly six reasons why she did not. 

Here they are, all in a row: 

Reason Number One. — She was not quite sure of Jerome — quite sure, 
perhaps, in regard to his affections, but not his intentions. Love is much, 
but not everything, and a lover surrounded by difficulties is not to b« 
depeuded upon matrimonially. 

Number Two. — She was as resolutely bent upon getting out of this mean, 
sordid life as-ever, and what way was there but this way ? 

Number Three. — Rube was rich, and Rube’s wife would be rich. too. 
For her part, she was sick and tired of poverty.' Poverty, in a wa)r]d 
governed by wealth, is the most unpardonable sin in that world’s deca- 
logue. 

Number Four. — Rubewms in “ society,” and what ambitious woman ever 
yet saved her soul outside the magic circle of society ? 

Number Five. — Rube wms an aristocrat, and Rube’s wife would Ik.' 
7iecessitate rei^ an aristocrat also. Her Creator, she believed, had intended 
her for an aristocrat; otherwise why had He endowed her with intellect, 
beauty, and the power to sway men’s passions ? 

Number Six. — The fact that she did not love Rube had, in reality, 
nothing to do with Rube’s eligibility as a husband. He w'ould make a 
very good one, an infinitely better one than none at all ! 

Of course, she would be paying a tremendous price for all these worldly 
advantages. Mell w^as aware of tliat all the while, but after deducting 
from the gross w^eiglit of their true value tne real or approximate w^eight 
of their possible evils and disadvantages, she w^ould undoubtedly still be 
getting the best of a good bargain. 


42 


THE LION' 8 SHARE, 


What is life hut an enigmatical offset of losses and gain— so much gain 
on the one hand, so much loss on the other ? And what was this transac- 
tion between herself and Eube but a repetition, under a somewhat differ- 
ent formula, of those mathematical problems worked out on her slate at 
school ? It was all very simple. 

Young woman, if you were in Mell’s place; if you had six good reasons 
for not telling the man you are about to marry that you did not care a 
straw about him, wouldn’t you hold your peace ? 

Then cast no stones at Mell. 

Mell was deeply moved by Rube’s words, but not deep enough to damage 
her future prospects. And since a woman has very poor prospects outside 
of matrimony, ought we not to excuse her for attending closely to 
business ? 

At all events, although Mell’s thoughts were heavy, and her soul stirred 
within her, and her thick breathing almost stifled in a painful sense of 
guilt, she did not say a word. Feeling that Rube’s eyes were fixed upon 
her, she raised to him her own, suffused in tears; an answer which fully 
satisfied her companion. From which it will appear that a woman may weep 
for the man she takes in — weep, and yet keep on taking him in. 

And what can a man do ? How could Rube tell that it was the hidden 
pathos of his own groundless faith, and not a feeling of sympathetic affec- 
tion, which brought such softness of expression into that girl’s luminous 
orbs ? 

If the actual is the only true thing, and amounts to everything, as it 
really does in the school of Realism, there is still one difficulty to be 
encountered — to get hold of the actual. He who aspires to find out the 
actual, where a woman is concerned, must get himself another kind of eye, 
one whose vision is introspective and able to penetrate into that mysterious 
element in a clever woman’s nature which enables her so successfully to 
clothe the Hot-True in the beautiful garments of Truth. 

Rube Rutland felt uncertain about a good many things — his own strength 
under temptation, his mother’s consent to this marriage, Clara’s temper, 
the great sea serpent, the Pope’s infallibility, the man in the Iron Mask, 
and many a cock-and-bull story beside, but he never once doubted Mell 
Creecy’s love, the purest myth among them all. 

He came, after this, every day to the little house upon the hill, and had 
it out “ comferterble in the parler,” as old man Creecy had advised Jerome 
to do. He courted with the enthusiasm of an incorrigible faddist over a 
new fad; and no lover of those olden days of which he had spoken, when 
goodly kniglits tilted in the jousts of arms, and won fair lady’s favor with 
deeds of prowess, ever yet surpassed a modern mighty man with a mission. 
Devotion itself is paralyzed when it comes to them. 

At the Bigge House, as one may suppose, there had been considerable 
consternation when its young master announcf^d his intention of taking to 
wife old Jacob Creecy’s daughter. Consternation, but hardly surprise; for 
liube had ever been one of tliose lawless members of well-conducted house- 
holds privileged to say and do outrageous things, and expected to turn out 
of the beaten track on the slightest provocation. 

Miss Rutland was most concerned. Said she to her brother: 

“ Rube, why not marry a female Ojibbwa, and be done with it ? That 
would be an improvement on Mell Creecy as a mesalliance. My God! Rube, 
you can’t bring a girl here into this house as your wife, whose father talks like 
a nigger, who says ‘dis,’ and ‘dat,’ and ‘udder;’ or do you expect to hold your 


THE LION'S SHARE. 


43 

poeition in society, yonr place among honorable men, simply by the grace 
of heaven ?” 

This was severe; but it was not all— not half, in fact, that Rube had to 
hear before he got rid of Clara. But it was not the first time he had 
brought a hornet’s nest about his ears, nor swam against the stream, nor 
borne the brunt of Clara’s tongue. Through much practice Rube had 
pretty well mastered the art of holding out, which does not consist so much 
in talking back as in saying nothing. Moreover, his cause was good, and 
half a man can hold out with a good cause to hold on. One hard speech 
Rube did make to Clara; he told her, in etfect, that whatever might be the 
grammatical shortcomings of old Jacob Creecy himself, his daughter knew 
more in one single minute than Clara would ever learn in a lifetime. 

Mrs. Rutland was not less unwilling, but more reasonable. 

“You are my only son,” she said to him, “my first-born. I expected 
you to add lustre to the family and make a great match.” 

“ The family is illustrious enough,” replied he; “if not, it will never be 
more illustrious at my expense. I will have none of your great matches, 
mother. I intend to marry the woman I love. I have loved her ever since 
she was a child. None of the rest of you need marry her, however; I will 
not impose that task upon you. But Mellville is to be my wife to a dead 
certainty, and I am my own master.” 

“ You are, my son. I have not sought to prevent your marrying her. I 
have only expressed my disappointment.” 

“Well, I am sorry about that. But see here, mother; I will make it 
easy for you. Keep this as your own home as long as you live, and I will 
make another home for myself and the wife you do not like.” 

“No, no, my dear boy, ever generous, ever kind ! As your wife she 
must be dear to me. What is a mother’s greedy aspiration compared to 
her child’s real happiness ? Follow your bent, my boy; follow it with your 
mother’s sanction. And now, do you still love me a little. Rube, in spite 
of this new love ?” 

“A little, dear mother !” He threw his arms about her. “ No, not a little! 
Much, very much; more than ever before! And believe me, when you 
know Mell, you will feel very differently about it. You have only seen 
her so far, through Clara’s eyes; come and see her as she is; come now, 
mother, with me.” 

And so it came about that on a certain day Rube came as usual to the 
farmhouse, but not as usual, alone. His mother came with him— came, 
looking about her with prying eyes, and a nose bent on thorough investi- 
gation, and a mind ready to ferret out every idea in Mell’s brain; a mind 
ready to probe every weak place in Mell’s character; a mind ready to 
catechize every integument in Mell’s body. 

The look of things about the premises prepossessed her at once in the 
girl’s favor. The house was neither large, handsome, nor fresh; but it was 
venerable, an attribute greatly esteemed by people of rank. Much of its 
unpainted ugliness was concealed in trailing vines and creeping ivy, much 
of its dilapidation shrouded in luxuriant shrubbery, an every-day adapta- 
tion of the simplest elements of relief, technique. The little front garden, 
in its white-sanded walks and well-weeded beds, brilliant in many-hued 
blossoms, was just like a spruce country-damsel in her best biband tucker. 
The little parlor, daintily furnished and tastefully arranged, where the 
visitor trod, not on bare boards, but a neat carpet, commingling Turkish 
forms and Yankee interpretations, was still more suggestive. Into this 
cozy apartment Mell had really crowded, in practical forms, all she had 


44 


THE LION’8 SHARE, 


learned of human nature as it appears in man’s nature. Pretty 
things there were, but none too pretty for use. Perfect neatness 
there was, but not too perfect to interfere with a man’s love for 
the let-me-do-as-I-please principle. Here a man who smokes might, 
after asking permission, puff away to his heart’s content, putt* away 
without a compunction and without a frown from its ministering 
spirit. Or, if my lord feels in a breaking mood, let him break, break 
right and left, and there’s no great harm done; a few dollars would put 
them all back. This is a consideration by no means small or unim- 
portant to some men, who seem inspired to break everything they touch, 
from a woman’s heart to the most venerated of old brass icons. 

This little room did everything it could to please a man, and put nothing 
in his way; although it made him feel, with its presiding genius in it, every 
kind of way, except uncomfortable. 

There’s a rose upon the mantle, stuck by careless hand in a vase of 
antique design — one rose, no more; for one such faultless rose as this fills 
up all the spirit’s longing in a rose. A thousand roses, perfect of their 
kind, could do no more. Here we have sitb rosa a profound philosophical 
maxim showing its colors — as brief as profound, i.e., enough is enough, 
w^hether it be enough rose or enough stewed pigeon with green peas. 

On a spider-legged table in this diminutive lady’s bowser, there sat a dish 
of ferns ; some moss was growing in a basket ; some colored strands of 
wool lay across a piece of canvas ; a carved paper-cutter peeped out from 
the leaves of an unread book, left lying on an ottoman by some person who 
liad been scaled in an easy-chair with silken cushions, soft to rest upon in 
weariness, in a cozy corner; and on a sofa of crimson plush reposed, in rest- 
ful quiet, a guitar with blue ribbon attached. This guitar told its own 
tale ; Mell had learned something useful, after all, at that famous board- 
ing-school; for to the strumming of this guitar she could sing you, with 
inimitable taste and in a bird-like voice, an English madrigal, or a French 
chansonnette, or one of those plaintive love ditties which finds its way into 
the listener’s heart tlirough any language. 

“ How, mother,” said Rube, looking about him with pardonable pride, 
“ isn’t this pleasant? Have we, amid all our grandeur, any such snua den 
as this?” ^ 

“Well, no. Rube ! It is charming ! Multum in parm^ one may say. 
But whom have we here ?” 

It was Mell, halting for one awe-struck instant in the doorway, attired 
in a fresh muslin dress, with ribbons to match her eyes, and cheeks dyed a 
red carnation at the formidable prospect of meeting, face to face, the august 
mistress of the Bigge House. Rube pressed forward to meet her, and took 
her fluttering hand in his own, and led her forward. 

“Your new daughter, mother, and this, Mellville, is our good mother. 
You’ll get along famously with her, I believe, in spite of Clnra.” ' 

Who but a blundering man, like dear honest Rube, would have so com- 
pletely let the domestic cat out of the bag ? 

Ho need for MeU to be the most wide-awake creature in existence to 
understand on the spot, the real status of affairs, as concerned herself, at the 
Bigge House. 

Subjugated at once by her beauty, constrained to admit her lady-like 
deportment, Mrs. Rutland kissed the rounded cheek and hoped she would 
make her dear boy very happy. And Mell looked flatteringly conscious of 
the great lady’s condescension, and blushingly avowed her unalterable de- 


TEE LIOES 8HABE. 45 

termination to try. This interesting little ceremony seemed to dissipate all 
the underlying displeasure at Rube’s choice in his mother’s mind. 

She watched the girl closely during the interview which followed. Many 
girls are pretty and lady-like, not many are to be found as well educated 
as Mell Creeey, or as thoroughly equipped by both nature and education to 
entertain, to amuse, to fascinate. This was that part of Mell which “tuck 
arter her ole daddy,” as old Jacob was wont to say. Even Clara Rutland’s 
manners were not more easy and irreproachable, and Clara had never been 
half so ready in speech and apt in reply. It was a matter of agreeable 
wonder to Mrs. Rutland how a hard-working uneducated farmer could have 
such a daughter, and she wondered also if this phenomenal social prodig^v 
could be found so strongly marked in any other land under the sun. 

Obeying an instinct of curiosity, the visitor inquired : 

“Your father and mother, Melville, are they here? 'Will they see 
us ?” 

“ Not if I can help it !” inwardly. 

Outwardly very different. 

“ So sorry I Mother is not well to-day. She is rarely well, and rarely 
sees anyone. Father is as usual busy upon the farm.” 

“Rube says your father is a very thorough farmer,” remarked the 
risitor. 

“ Doesn’t a good farmer make money out of it,” queried Mell, glancing' 
at her betrothed with a doubtful little smile, “ just as a lawyer does out of 
law, and a doctor out of physic ? The earth is full of gold, "and ought not 
a good digger to strike it somewhere — some time ? Father, at any rate, is 
devoted to farming, as an occupation, and is happy in it, getting out of 
the ground more of God’s secrets than the rest of us find among the stars,” 

“ That is a pretty idea, Mellville,” said Mrs. Rutland. 

“Bless you !” exclaimed Rube, “ that’s nothing I She’s full of ’em !” 

Full of them, yes; and feeding his honest soul upon them, in place of the 
real bread of affection. 

The visit was long and pleasant, and at it close Mell accompanied her 
guests to the very door of their carriage. There Mrs. Rutland again touched 
the girl’s soft cheek with her high-bred lips. Her foot was upon the step- 
ping-stone, when with a sudden thought, she turned once more. 

“ Mellville, we are to be very gay next week, a house full of company; 
but I suspect we shall be honored with very little of Rube’s society unless 
we first secure yours. Will you come, then, and make us a little visit ?” 

“You are kind,” answered she, coloring beautifully with intensity of 
gratification. “ Most kind ! I will come with exceeding pleasure.” 

These were perhaps the first unstudied words she had uttered in Mrs. 
Rutland’s presence. There was no doubt about her wanting to go to the 
Bigge House. She had been wanting to go there a long time. A verit- 
able flood-tide of joy filled her being at this speedy consummation of 
her dearest hopes, but it was not of this she thought at that moment, nor 
©f Mrs. Rutland, nor of Rube. “I will see Jerome,” was what Mell 
thought. 

“ Sweetest of mothers !” said Rube inside the vehicle. 

“Luckiest of men!” returned his mother. “I am returning home as 
did the Queen of Sheba; the half was not told !” 

Rube now felt solid, unquestionably solid, in his own mind. 

Mell, standing yet in the gateway, looked after them ; gladly received 
they had been, like many another guest; gladly, too, dismissed. 


46 


THE LI0H8 SHARE. 


“ The chain tightens,” cogitated the future mistress of the Biggo House, 
** and if I should want to break it!” 

But why should she want to break it, unless — ” 

“There’s no use counting upon that,” Mell frankly admitted to, herself, 
“ and no man’s difficulties must be allowed to interfere with my future. 
And Rube is so eligible! A good fellow, too; a most excellent fellow! 
There’s a something, however. What is it ?” 

We will tell you, Mell — Rube is not Jerome. 

Going back into the house she found her father and mother peeping 
through the blinds. 

“ Lord, Lord !” exclaimed old Jacob. “ You’se jess er gittin’ up, Mell ! 
I knowed ye could do it, darter; but I mus’ say, I never lookt fer yer ter 
git es high es the Bigge House.” 

Mrs. Creecy inquired about Mrs. Rutland. Was she nice ? pleasant ? 

“ Very. No one could be nicer or pleasanter. She asked for you— both 
of you.” 

“ She did ? Then why didn’t you tell us ?” 

“Wife !” remonstrated the old farmer, “ you is sartingly loss yo’ senses ! 
Don’t ye know, when Mell’s fine friends comes er long, we’s expected ter 
run inter er rat-hole or some udder hole? All the use chillun has fer 
parients these days is ter keep ’em er going. Onst Mrs. Rullan’, Mell 
aint gwine ter know us by site ! She aint no chile er mine, no how, Mell 
aint !” 

“ Wall, now, she is yourn, I kin tell ye,” cried Mrs. Creecy, flaring up, 
very much to the enjoyment of her liege lord. 

The daughter turned off in disgust. Her father’s pleasantries were the 
least pleasant of all his disagreeable ways. A coarse man’s humor is apt 
to be the coarsest thing about him. 

It was under very different auspices from those of her day dreams, that 
Mell, after a few days of busy preparation, was admitted into the sacred 
precincts of the social hierarchy. 

Jerome was to have been the founder of her greatness, her steersman in 
these unknown waters — not Rube. 

None in this higher realm welcomed her more graciously than Clara. 
Clara had high views of philosophy, but only one maxim : “ See how the 
hare runs, hear how the owl cries, accept the inevitable, and get all you can 
out of it.” 

Jerome returned from Cragmore the day following her own domestication 
into this new sphere of existence. How strange it all seemed, and how 
unnatural ! How strange he should find her there, and with so good a 
right to be there ! Surely years have intervened since those lovely morn- 
ings in the meadow, when Sukey cropped the dew- wet grass, and she sat 
on the old tree-stump and Jerome lay at her feet. 

Surely long, long years ! 

So long that Jerome has forgotten all about them— and her. She is now 
to him only Miss Creecy, the prospective wife of his nearest friend, the 
prospective mistress of the Bigge House, and not attractive, it would ap- 
pear, in these new surroun lings. Others, very likely, did not notice how 
he never spoke to her, if he could help it; how he never looked at her, if ho 
could help it; how they kept far apart, as far as the East is from the West, 
though sleeping under the same roof, and eating at the same table, and 
constantly together morning, noon, and night. Others did not notice all 
these things, but Mell did. 

“He despises me,” sobbed Mell in the darkness of her own chamber, 


TIIE LION’S SUAIIK 47 

Bmothering her sobs in her own pillow. ‘‘Once he loved, and now he 
despises me !” 

Better go to sleep, Mell ; tears cannot wash away stern facts, and what 
good would it do now, if he did love you ? 

The other guest has come ; the one of whom Jerome had spoken. It is 
the Honorable Archibald Pendergast, who is middle-aged, well-fed, and 
somewhat portly, who has big round shoulders and a jolly way of looking 
at things, who bellows out his words with a broad accent, and says, Aw ! 
aw! with tremendous effect; who wears his whiskers d la vim li ere 
Anglaise, as befits a man proud of his British ancestry and his English 
ways. This great man’s marvellous wealth and honors, and incalculable 
influence in national councils, and stupendous grandeur of future pros- 
pects, carry everything before him — at the Bigge House, and everywhere 
else. 

Adapting herself with versatile cleverness, to these prevailing conditions 
in her unaccustomed environment, Mell’s conception of modes and manners 
expanded day by day, and she began to see plainly a good many objects 
only dimly discerned before. 

“I don’t think,” remarked she, quite innocently to Rube, the day after 
the great man’s advent, “ that Mr. Devonhough admires the Senator as much 
as the rest of us.” 

“ I shouldn’t wonder !’’ 

Rube looked knowing and laughed. 

“ If he was as badly stuck on you as he appears to boon Clara, /wouldn’t 
admire him either 1” 

“But,” said Mell, “ is Jerome ?” 

“ Yes, certainly. Didn’t you know’ that ? I thought you did. They aro 
in the same interesting predicament as ourselves. Only Clara wont an- 
nounce, because she w^ants to keep up to the last minute her good times 
with other men. I don’t see how Devonhough stands it, and I’m aw’fully 
glad you’re not that sort of a girl 1” 

“How long?” asked not-that-sort-of-a-girl, trying to steady her voice, 
trying to maintain her role of a disinterested inquirer. 

“ How’ long have they been engaged !” repeated Rube. “ Let me see — 
Six months at least.’’ 

“Six months 1” 

“ You seem surprised, Mell.” He turned his glance full upon her. 

“ Not at all,” said she, pulling herself to rights. “ I was only thinking 
that you ought to be willing to wait as long as that. ” 

“So I w’ould; as many years, for that matter, if there w’as any good 
reason why I should. But there is not; not one, and so, Mell — ” 

“ Six months 1” ejaculated Mell, in the privacy of her own room. “ So 
all the while he lay at my feet he w’as engaged to Clara Rutland !” 

Mell began to understand Jerome's difficulties. 

Later on she saw clearly some other things. Clara is fond of Jerome, 
and would gladly, for that reason, marry him; but she is likewise attracted 
by the mighty Senator’s w’ealth, and national importance, and English 
ancestry, and future expectations ; and for such reasons leans matri- 
monially towards the Honorable Archibald, who is thirty years older than 
Jerome, but thirty years richer and thiity years greater. Between two 
fires Clara meanwhile keeps to the letter of the law witli Jerome, and holds 
out in ambuscade le pot an lait to the Honorable Archibald. 

A closer acquaintance with the interior circuit of these unwontnd sur- 
roundings, so delicately refined, so distinctly aristocratic, so far above her 


48 


THE LION’S SILiEE. 


own poor world, and yet withal, so unsatisfying and so “ over-charged with 
surfeiting,” developed to Mell the startling fact that a life sptuit in inces- 
sant amusement not only soon ceases to amuse, but becomes, in process of 
time, a devouring contiict with ennui. She recalled with a sense of won- 
dering comprehension the Arab proverb: “All sunshine makes the 
desert. ” 

Another thing, these women at ease, with nothing in the world to do, 
Mell was thunderstruck to discover, were the hardest worked people she 
luid ever known, striving each on a daily battle-ground of dawdling, dress- 
ing, and pleasure. Seeking after some personal end, some empty honor, 
or some favorite phantom just out of reach. What bickering and strife; 
what small conspiracies; what canker at the roots and stunting in the fruit; 
what Guelph and Ghibbeline factions in the midst of all this music, and 
dancing, and laughter ! The same amount of time spent in a good cause, 
^lell’s long head could not but realize, would ease the rack, plant many a 
i)lade of «orn, staunch many a bleeding w^ound, wipe the death drops from 
many a ghastly brow, lift up heaps of fallen heroes prone on stony plains, 
and plant the standard of the cross on many a benighted shore. Outside, 
Mell had yearned towards this stronghold of the rich, as a place where 
there Wtus plenty of room for growth and happiness : inside, she discovered 
with astonishment and a groan, that there was plenty of room there for 
dullness and unhappiness as well. Idleness without repose, leisure and no 
ease, tears and no time to shed them — on every side, and unexpected dry- 
rot in the substance of things, she had pictured to her own fancy as fair, 
and only fair. 

“Thep,” interrogated Mell of her conscious Ego, “if not here, where 
d vvelleth content ?” 

Mayhap, Mell, upon the rock where the hawks nest, or in that haven 
w’here the roving wind hideth its tired self for rest. Somewhere, but never 
among the haunts of men. The deep hath its treasures, and there are 
treasures of the mine ; the mind hath its treasures, and there are treasures 
of store; but content is the golden treasure, hardest of all to find, and 
when found hardest to keep. 

One night there was a ball, and the social lights of Pudney and Crag- 
more, and the capital of the State itself, turned out in full force. Tho 
Bigge House was crammed to its utmost capacity. 

Dressing early, Mell left her room to other guests, in various stages of 
evening toilet, and descending to the first floor, looked about her for some 
(piiet spot where, for a time, she could hide herself and her tumultuous 
thoughts. The large reception room was dimly lighted as yet, and empty 
apparently. Glad to find it so, she walked in, and standing between the 
h»ng pier-glasses, a tapering column draped in tulle clouds, took a full- 
length, back and front inspection of her own person. 

Now this dainty rustic maiden, as we have seen, looked at when framed 
in a high-necked, long-sleeved, simple morning-gown, made a sweet pic- 
ture for any eye ; but it was, in some respects, a tame presentation com- 
jmred to this gorgeously arrayed being, bedecked in flowers and a low cor- 
sage, with marble shoulders, shapely throat, alabaster neck and rounded 
arms, bewilderingly displayed, cunningly concealed. This fairy-like being 
cannot be a honaJlcU woman ; she is more likely a study from Reynolds 
or Gainsborough, who has stepped out of canvas and a gilt frame on the 
wall there, merely to delight the living eye and inflame the fumes of 'vital 
fancy. 

Not long, however, whether sprite or woman, did she pose there in ad- 


THE LION^S 8 BARE. 


49 


miration of her own face and figure. For, truth to tell, they have both 
])ocome hateful in the girl’s own sight. Her fair face looks to herself no 
longer as a fresh-gathered blossom sparkling with dew, as the ethereal im 
terpreter of a woman’s pure soul, blameless and serene. Much more does; 
it look, to her own acute sensibilities, as a painted mask, put on for hard 
sei’vice ; always in place, always properly adjusted, proof against attack, 
but every little loophole needing to be defended at evGt*y*point. A mask 
very troublesome to wear, but not upon any account to be discarded, since 
it concealed the discordance of a secret love and the clanking of a chain. 

Ib.t now, to-night, in this empty room, in this deep silence and blessed 
solitude, where there is no eye to see, no ear to hear, she will throw off for 
out! thankful moment the ugly, hateful thing. She will allow the dejected 
visage to fitly portray the dejected mind ; she will breathe freely once more, 
and sigh and sigh, and moan and moan, and wring her hands in uncontrol- 
lable agony; and, ignoring the fact that the heaviest part of her trouble is 
of her own making, wonder why she had ever been born for such as this. 

Hope is entirely dead in Mell’s heart. Transplanted out of the lowly 
valley of her own birth to the mountain-tops of her soul’s desire, she feels 
as lonely as we might imagine the spirit of Greek art, set down in a modern 
world. Turn whatever way she would, there was but one fate for her — 
martyrdom. If she did not marry Rube, she would be a martyr in her own 
humble home ; if she did marry him, she would be a martyr in his moro 
pretentious one ; and there was not as great a difference as she had thought 
between the air in the valley and the air on the mountain-top. It is the 
lungs which breathe, and not the air inhaled, most at issue, and a martyr 
is a martyr anywhere, the social type being hardly less excruciating to un- 
dergo than others more quickly ended. 

Pitiful in the extreme are such thoughts in a young mind ; pitiful such 
manifestations of suffering in one too young to suff’er. 

How the people upstairs would be surprised if they could see her ! How 
the Honorable Archibald, who liked things jolly, begawd ! who thought all 
evidence of feeling bad form, you know; who believed, root and branch, in 
British stoicism, even in the jaws of death ; how he would advise her in a 
spirit of friendliness and a well-bred way, not' aw to make a blawsted dolt 
of herself— if he only knew. Fortunately,, he didmot know ; fortunately, 
nobody knew. 

Nobody ? 

Then who or what is that creature in semblance of man, in attitude of 
deepest thought, with folded arms and hanging head, darkly shadowed, 
dimly seen, scarcely discernible in the embrasure of the window over 
there ? 

Spirit or man ? If a man, he might be a dead one for all the noise ho 
makes— only a dead man was never known before to use his eyes in such a 
lively manner, or his ears to such good purpose, or to betray so deep an 
interest in a living woman, even in a ball dress. 

Mell did not look towards him, did not know he was there ; yet, on a 
sudden, as if from some inward sense of vigilance rather than any extra- 
neous source of knowledge, her pulses strangely fluttered— she became 
aware that she was not in reality alone. IioiL\ in the absence of visual 
impression, we can only say by an instinct as unaccountable as the phe- 
nomenon of sound waves which excite wire vibrations. 

was mysteriously imbued with another presence, if such a thing 13 
possible, and in all the world there was but one who could so clothe the cir- 
cumambient air in his own personality. 


50 


TEE LION S SHARE, 


That one was Jerome Devonhough. Perceiving she now knew he was 
there, he got up and came towards her. 

Mell did not look at him ; she looked upon the floor. He looked straight 
at her, and looked so long and hard, and with a gaze so fixed and steady, 
that he seemed to be slowly absorbing her very being into his own entity. 

When this became intolerable, the fairy-like apparition in tulle, wrestling 
with the situation, on a war footing with her own feelings, lifted from a 
glowing face those lapis lazuli eyes of hers — pure stones liquified by sout 
action — to his face and dropped them. In one swift turn of those eyes she 
had taken in as much of that stern, cold, accusing face as she could well 
bear. But there was nothing on it she had not expected to see. She knew 
the unrelenting disdain of that proud nature for what is stained, unworthy, 
unwomanly, as well as she knew its strength to esteem, its gift to exalt, its 
power to bless. 

And to look into a once loving face now grown cold, and to find there no 
longer an indulgent smile nor approving aspect, is not an experience to be 
coveted, even by the happiest. 

“ You are enjoying it, I hope,” said at length a low mocking voice. 

“Enjoying it I” retorted plucky Mell, “of course I am enjoying it I 
Why shouldn’t I ? I am probably enjoying it as much as you are!” 

. “ More, I hope. I, for one, never did enjoy being miserable.” 

“ Oh, miserable I” exclaimed Mell, in a lively tone. His misery appeared 
to put her in the highest spirits. “ Going to marry a rich girl and feeling 
miserable over it, how is that? You ought to be as happy, almost, as I 
am !” 

“ The happiness which needs to be so extolled,” replied Jerome, with a 
sardonic laugh, “ rests on a slim foundation. Mine is of a different stamp. 
It leads me to envy the very worms as they crawl under my feet. Even a 
worm is free to go where his wishes lead him — even a worm is free to find 
an easy death and quick, when life becomes insupportable.” 

Mell pressed her hand upon her heart, beating so fast — ^that pent-up heart 
in a troubled breast, which rose and fell as a storm-tossed vessel amid tem- 
pestuous seas. 

“ You cannot blame me for it,” said she wildly. “ You slighted me, 
you trifled with me, you goaded me to it! I would do it again; if need be !” 

“Once has been enough,” Jerome told her, in sadness. Speech was an 
effort to him ; when a man regards some treasure, once his own now lost to 
him, he thinks much, but he has little to say. That little, nine times out of 
ten, would better be left unsaid. Jerome felt it so; for a longtime he said 
nothing more— he only continued to look at the woman he had lost. 

She continued to contemplate the floor, until those polished boards, waxed 
in readiness for gay dancers’ feet, became to her a sorry sight indeed, and a 
source of nervous irritation. When their glances encountered again, hers 
was full of passionate entreaty, his of inflamed regret. 

“I have a question to put to you,” he broke forth, harshly. “ What 
right have you to marry Eube Eutland, loving me ?” 

“ The same right that you have to marry Clara Eutland, loving me!” 

This turned the tables. How Jerome’s glance was riveted upon thos« 
polished boards, and she looked at him. She bad not had so good a look at 
him ill a long time, and her two eyes liad never been eyes enough to tak« 
in as much of him as her heart craved. 

“ At least,” s;iid Jerome, regaining his composure and holding up hia 
head, “ this much may be said for me My contract with her was made 
in good faith. 1 liked her well enough- I loved no one else — it was aU 


THE LIOK’8 SHARE. 


51 


right until I met you. My soul is as a pure white dove in this matter, com* 
pared to yours ! And these bonds of mine, they hang but by a single 
thread. Our future would have been assured but for your broken faith.” 

“ Mine ? It is all your fault, not mine ! Had you trusted me, as a man 
ought to trust the woman he loves, all might have been well with us.” 

“All would have been well with us had you trusted we, as a woman 
should trust the man she loves. Did I not ask you so to trust me ? Great 
God! Mellville, could I conceive that you would stake your future hanoi- 
ness — our future happiness, on the paltry issues of a foot-race ? That whole 
day my mind was full of projects for bringing about a happy terminatior 
to all our troubles. I could have done it ! I would have done it 1 But 
now 1” 

Lashed into fury by a vivid conception of his own wrongs, brought about, 
as he chose to consider, through her treachery alone, Jerome turned upon 
her angrily : 

“ liCt me tell you one thing ! You shall not marry Kube Rutland I” 

“ Shall I not ?” 

Mell laughed — not one of her musical laughs. Now that she was fairly 
in for it, she rather enjoyed this fencing match with Jerome. Hitherto, 
she had always by stress of circumstances, acted upon the defensive with 
him ; now she could assert her mastery. 

“ Shall I not ? How will you prevent it ?” 

“ I will open his eyes. I will tell him you do not care a rap for him.” 

“You will tell him that? Very well. I will swear to him that I do. 
Whom will he believe ? Not you 

Her words, her manner, were exasperating, and they were intended to be 
exasperating. That cool and systematic self-control which characterized 
Jerome, had more than aroused a' feeling of rebellious protest in the girl’s 
impetuous nature. If she could break him up a little-^ 

“ / say you shall not marry Mm /” The words were not loudly spoken, 
but they were the utterances of a man much in earnest. “Rather than 
see you his wife I would gladly see you dead !” 

“ Oh, no doubt ! But let me tell you, sir, I do not propose to die to 
please you I I propose to please myself by becoming the wife of Rube 
Rutland !” 

This was too much, even for Jerome. 

“ You heartless, cruel, wicked woman !” 

With a single stride he reached her side ; he shook his finger rudely in 
her face ; nay, in a frenzy of mad passion he did worse than that — he took 
hold of the wayward creature herself and shook her with such violence 
that those heavy coils of hair, upon which she had expended so much time 
and pains, loosened and fell about her in a reckless loveliness beyond the 
reachof art. 

“ Woman, do you know what you are doing ? Do you know that you are 
playing with dangerous implements ? toying with men’s passions ? dallying 
with men’s souls ?” 

It is safe to say, Moll had never had such a shaking up, however frequent 
the occasions when she had deserved it. 

This unconventional usage on the part of Jerome, a man who wore self- 
possession and correct manners as an every day coat of mail, not only sur- 
prised Mell, but terrified and subdued her. In undertaking to “ break up” 
Jerome by stirring up the green-eyed monster, Mell had neglected to take 
into account the well-established fact, that no jealous man stands long 
upon ceremony. Panting for breath, she awoke unpleasantly to a full com- 


52 


THE LION'S SHARE. 


prehension of a madman’s possibilities, and ignoring all those impassioned 
inquiries with which he had interlarded the severer measures of coi-poreal 
punishment, she remarked in a spirit of meekness and a very faint voice : 

“Jerome, let me go, please ; you are hurting me.” 

“ But how much more you are hurting me,” said Jerome, harshly. 

He released her, however, and felt ashamed. No man with, real manli- 
ness in him, but does feel ashamed after he has hurt a woman. She may 
have deserved it, and yet he feels ashamed. 

One would think that now after this ungentlemanly conduct on Jerome’s 
part, Mell the high spirited will not only be full of a tremendous indigna- 
tion, but be willing, and more than willing, to give him up for good and all. 

How little you know a woman, you who think that ! A harmless man 
never does anywhere so little harm as in a woman’s affections. The rod 
of empire sways the world and a woman’s mind — all women, to a great or 
less degree; all women are sisters. 

In other words, it is very necessary for a man to be capable of shaking 
up a woman for past offences, and present naughtiness, when she needs it, 
or else he must make up his mind to take a back seat and give up the 
supremacy. Some of the fair sex never come to terms without a shaking 
— there may be one or two, here and there among them, who never come 
to terms, even with a shaking ! 

Mell did not belong to this small minority; she was completely subdued. 
Contrite, and submissive, she now approached her audacious antagonist; 
approached him timidly, where he stood a little apart, and with his back 
turned to her, feeling, as we have said, quite ashamed of himself, and said 
gently : 

“ Jerome, I will break with Rube if you will break with Clara.” 

“ An honorable man cannot leave a woman in the lurch,” answered he, 
in a manner indicative of a strong protest under the existing law. 

“ And how about an honorable woman ?” interrogated Mell. 

“She can he, and lie, and still be honorable,” he informed her with 
ficrcy irony. 

“ Then you expect me to ” 

“ I do ! I confidently expect you to do it, and at once. Break with him, 
and have a little patience with me, until Clara gets the Honorable Archi- 
bald taut on the line, and awakens to the fact that she loves me still — but 
only as a brother ! It is coming — it is sure to come, and before long.” 

“ In the meantime,” remarked Mell, with a peculiar expression, “ what’s 
the use of hurting Rube’s feelings ?” 

“ Gods and angels, listen !” exclaimed her companion, in overwhelming 
indignation. “ The question then has narrowed down to the getting of a 
husband without regard to any body’s feelings — save Rube. His are not to 
he hurt until you can hurt them with impunity ! You are bound to hold 
on to him until you secure we, beyond a peradventure ! That is your 
little game, Mell, is it ? Out upon you ! Oh, unfortunate man that I am, 
to have fallen into the hands of a woman who is particular as to the fit of 
her ball dress, but has no preference when it comes to a husband ; 
who has the aspect of a goddess, but the easy principles of a Delilah ; 
who is, in fact, not a genuine woman at all, with a heart and a soul in 
her, but a man-eating monster, seeking prey — a shark in woman’s clothing, 
ready to take into the matrimonial clutch, and swallow at a single gulp, 
me, if you can get me; if not me. Rube; if not Rube, any other eligible 
creature in man’s guise, whether descended from a molecule in the coral, 


TEE UON*S SEAEE, (53 

or a tadpole in the spawn : whether a swine of Epicurus, or an ape just 
from Barbary ! Shame upon you, woman ! Shame ! Shame ! 

Restive under these severe strictures, Mell had made several ineffectual 
attempts to put a stop to them, but her appealing gestures implored in 
vain. Finding he would not desist, she bit her lips in great agitation, 
and crimsoned violently. 

’ “ You are the most impertinent man in existence !” she informed him 

petulantly, when he had done. 

“That’s right, Mell,” he answered. “Turn red— turn red to the 
lof your eyelashes ! It is the most hopeful sign I hare yet seen. Medvilie, 
00 k at me.” 

She raised to him wonderingly her wondrously beautiful eyes. 

“I have been asking myself how I could love you so well, a womPvU 
w'ho could condescend to sail under false colors; who knows how to stoop 
from her high estate, and trick, and juggle, and blind; who has set a trap 
to catch a mouse, and victimizes her prey; who has spread her toils to 
obtain a husband under false pretences. I have asked myself many time's', 

‘ how can you love that woman ? ’ I have washed that I loved you less — 
that I loved you not at all ! And I would crush it out — this unspeakable 
tenderness, which shields and defends your image in my heart — crush it 
out, beat it dowm, tear it into tatters, grind it into dust under the heel of 
an inexorable resolve, but that I believe, but that I know^ Mell, that 
there is something within you deeper, better, worthier ! ‘Truth is God,’ 
and the woman who is true in all things is a part of Divinity. But 
what of the woman who is false where she ought to be true ? Let her 
hide her head in the presence of devils ! Be true, then, Mell, be earnest ! 
This frivolous trifling with life’s most serious concerns shows so small ia 
a being born to a noble heritage! It is only excusable in a natural 
or a woman unendowed wuth a soul.” 

Jerome here paused. After a moment spent in thought, he ap- 
proached his companion very near, and in a voice of passionate tender- 
ness resumed : 

“My darling! you can never know what hours of tortment, what days 
of suffering, this conduct of yours has cost me. But I believe you have 
erred more through thoughtlessness, and a pardonable feeling of resent- 
ment — more through love turned into madness, than any settled determin- 
ation to do wrong. But now let it go no further. Hasten to set your- 
self right with Rube. No matter whether you and I are de-stined to bo 
happy in each other’s love or not; at all hazards be true to the immortal 
within you. Promise me to undo the mischief you have done; promise 
me to be a good, true, useful woman, thinking more of duty than your 
owm interest and pleasure. The world is overstocked with butterflies, but 
it needs good women, and I want you to be one of them — the best ! My 
darling, you will promise me ?” 

Mell was much affected; she hung her head and her bosom heaved. 

“Do you hesitate?” cried Jerome, mistaking her silence. “Promise 
me, Mell, I implore, I beseech you !” 

“Theatricals?” asked a voice in the doorway. 

It was Rube. 

“ Rehearsing your parts ?” he again inquired, coming in. 

“ Yes,” replied Jerome. “ For are we not all players upon a stage ?” 

“ And what play have they decided upon ?” next questioned the unsus- 
pecting Rube, who, carrying no concealed weapons himself, was never on 
the lookout for concealed weapons on others. 


54 


TEE LION'S SHARE. 


I don’t recall the name,” said Jerome. “ Do you, Miss Creecy ? It is 
*• Lover’s Quarrel,’ or some such twaddle, I think.” 

Mell thought it was something of that kind, but she furthermore ex- 
pressed the opinion that it would be well-nigh impossible to get it up in 
time for the delectation of the Honorable Archibald. 

“'Which is no great pity,” declared the oif-hand Kube; “I wish he’d 
take himself elsewhere to be delectated.” 

There was no doubt as to Kube’s preferences for a brother-in-law; 
which, however, did not take away from the awkwardness of this remark. 
Not suspicious, neither was Rube obtuse; he noted a singular contraction 
on Jerome’s brow, he noted a strange confusion in Mell’s manner, and he 
put it all down to his own blundering tongue, w’hich was always placing his 
best friend either in a false or in an annoying position before Mell. Out 
of these considerations he made haste to subjoin : 

“Ah, Mellville, you should have seen Devonhough how splendidly he 
acquitted himself in our class plays at college !” 

This was a pure offering from friendship’s store. Honest Rube, with his 
fine open countenance all aglow with enthusiasm for his friend and joy 
in the presence of the woman he loved, looked the archetype of hopeful 
young manhood, untouched, as yet, by sorrow or mistrust. Regarded 
from an architectural standpoint, he had the sublime simplicity and dignity 
of the Doric, which was just wherein he differed from Jerome, who was a 
Corinthian column, delicately chiselled, ornately moulded. 

Mell remarked, in reply to this expression of lively admiration from 
Rube, that she wished she could have seen Mr. Devonhough — or some- 
thing. Mr. Devonhough, with the expression of a man whose self-respect 
will not admit of his bearing much more, said with an impatient “ Pshaw,” 
that she needn’t wish to have seen him, that this good acting of his was all 
in Rube’s eye, and nowhere else; that he hated an actor, and that he never 
would act another part himself, as long as he lived, not to oblige anybody, 
and so help him God ! 

After which, shadowed by clouds, beleaguered with dark thouglits, with 
Bombre fires of jealousy smoldering in his eye, and war-hounds of anxiety 
gnawing at his vitals, he abruptly turned and left the room — not with his 
usual deliberation. 

And still Rube saw nothing. 

“He’s real cut up,” said the sympathetic Rube, looking cominiseratv 
ingly after the friend of his bosom. “And all for what? Because a 
woman never seems certain of her own mind. When judgment overtakes 
you women what is to become of you all, anyhow — eh, Mell ?” 

Mell could hardly say; and Rube, dismissing Jerome from his mind for 
the present, found other occupation. He had never seen Mell before in 
full dress. He addressed himself con amore, and exclusively, for a time, 
to the study of structural feminity and those marvels of nature presented 
to the eye of the earnest investigator, in the shape of a well-formed 
woman on the outside of a ball dress. 

During this process Rube’s sensations were indefinable. 

Mell, preoccupied in thoughts of her own, hears, at length, his voice 
dreamily, as a sound from afar, and looks up irritably to sec, for the 
hundredth time, how coarse of fibre Rube is compared to Jerome. 

She resents the unpalatable fact. She resents something else, and 
makes a very vigorous but unavailing effort to gain her freedom. 

“I cannot understand,” playfully remonstrated Rube, and with anus 
immoYable, “why so simple a matter disturbs you so much. You are as 


TEE LION^S SUARE, 


white as a sheet, you arc quivering like a leaf, your hands arc icy cold, 
and what is it all about ?” 

“I told you never, never to do that I” cried out Mell, in an agony of 
passionate protest. 

Even the most cold-blooded among mortals finds the caress of a person 
not dear to them oftensive; but take the woman of emotional nature, ex- 
quisively sensitive in all matters of feeling, and to such the touch of un- 
loved lips is worse than a plague spot. 

“Don’t you hear me ? I cannot bear it 1 I am not used to it 1” 

There was something more than maidenly coyness in her tone; there was 
mental anguish, and a downright shade of anger. We wonder Rube did 
not detect it. But you know^, gentle reader, how it is. There are so many 
things all around and about us w^hich w^e do not hear and see, because 
we are intent upon other matters, and are not looking for them. With 
such feelings, in that dreadful moment Mell would rather have submitttd 
to a dozen stripes from Jerome, than one single caress from Rube — htr 
future husband, bear you in inindl the being by w^hose side she expected 
to pass the rest of her days. Poor Mell ! If getting up in the world re- 
quires self-torture, self-immolation such as this, wouldn’t it be better, 
think you, not to get up ? Wouldn’t it be better, in the long run, for every 
Avoman, situated as you are, to use a dagger, and thereby not only settle 
her future, but get clean out of a world where such sufferings are neces- 
sary ? There can’t be any other wmrld much worse, judged by your present 
sensations. 

But Rube, as we have said, did not hear that piteous Avail of a w’oman 
coercing her flesh and blood, the frame of her mind, the bent of her soul. 
She Avas his own, and no wmrds could tell, how he loved her. If a man 
cannot lawfully kiss his own wife, or one so near to being his o\Am wife, 
it is a hard case, truly. That one little slip “ ’twixt the cup and the lip,” 
which has played such havoc in men’s expectations, from the first begin- 
nings of time to the present moment, did not enter into Rube’s calcula- 
tions, or his thoughts. 

He was in a playful and a loAung mood. Ho tightened his clasp upon 
her, he chucked her under the chin, he pinched her cheek, he pattc'd those 
sunny locks of hers and smiled down into that fair face, fairs les yeux 
douxy and babbled to her in loA'er-language, not unlike the “pitty, pitty 
ittle shing”upon which we linguistically feed helpless infancy, as little 
w itting the possible sufferings of the child under such an intiiction, as. 
Rube did MelFs. 

“ Hoav truly, Mell,” asked Rube, “ did you never let any other fellow kiss 
you — never ? not once ?” 

“ No !” said Mell, emphatic and indignant. Never ! And you shouldn’t 
now, if I could help myself I Do go away 1 I tell you I’m not used to such, 
as this !” 

She was almost ready to cry. 

The whole thing was immensely amusing and entertaining to Rube, andl 
while he laughed, he could also understand how it might come hard on ai 
girl, at first, to feel the bloom despoiled on her chaste lips. 

“ But you will get used to it after aAvhile,” he assured her, with a qniete 
smile. “ My word for it, you will ! I will see to it that you do. There' 
now, my pretty one (just what Jerome called her) sweet, frightened bird,, 
why ruffle your beautiful plumage against these bars ? They are made ot 
adamant; but only be quiet and take to them kindly and they Avill not do^ 
range a single feather. You are exquisitely lovely to-iiight ! You will in^- 


THE LION'tS SHARE. 


m 

toxicnte all beholders ! And have you been thinking of that blissful timo 
when we arc going to get married ?” 

She had, of course; but what made him so impatient ? Couldn’t he wait 
until she got back home ? liubo could, certainly ; but only on conditions, 
and those conditions would come very hard on a girl not used to a lover's 
kiss, and who objected to a lover’s fondling, unless she managed well. 

Fortunately, Mell could manage well. She could have managed the 
diversifted attractions of a dime museum if necessary. 

“ And before he shall desecrate my lips again,” Moll vowed to herself, 
under her breath, “ I will perish by my own hands !” 

Ah 1 Mell, Mell, you should have thought of that before you sold your- 
self ! 

At daylight she crawled upstairs and into bed. The ball had been a 
great success and she its reigning belle. Women like her, v/ith such a 
form, with such a face, with such glory of hair and wealth of high spirits 
and physical exuberance, work like a spell in a ball-room. There wfus 
something bewildering in the gleam of her eye ; something intoxicating in 
the turn of her neck, the flow of her garments. 

She had danced, to please Kube, more than once with Jerome. It was 
while the two were floating together in that delirious rapture of conscious 
nearness, to which the conventional waltz gives pretext and the stamp of 
propriety, and while their senses swayed to the rhythmic measure of the 
sweetest music they had ever heard, that Mell looked up meltingly into her 
partner’s face — a face absorbed, excited, yet darkly set with a certain stern- 
ness which Mell fully understood — looked up and said to hiin ; “ Oaiy 
'Wait until I get back home.” Simple words indeed, and holding little 
meaning for those wdio heard; but they gave a new lease of life to Jerome. 
He answered back in a w'hisper, certain words. And now it only re- 
rhaiued for Clara liutlaiid to accept the Honorable Archibald Pendergast 
and the happiness of two loving hearts would be assured. 

The ball is over, gone, past, never to come back again, with its waltz mel- 
ody, it ravishing rhyme without reason, its sw'eet smelling flowers, its foam- 
crested wine, its outlying joy, its underlying pathos, its hidden sweetm^ss, 
and its secret pain. For, there never was a ball yet which had its lights 
and not its shadows ; which did not have some heavy foot among its light 
fantastic toes ; some heavy heart among its gallant men and' beautiful 
women. 

Mell lives it over in the pale dawn. It made her blood curdle and her 
flesh creep to think of those two men. What was she going to do with 
them — Eube and Jerome? How was it all to end ? 

Horrible it would be to break off with Rube, more horrible still not to do 
^o. Fearful it would be to tell him the truth — the whole truth. Biit that 
was what Jerome expected her to do, what she ought to do. 

Those words of his were burned into her memory with fire. He wanted 
her to become a good, true, useful woman; and be/no longer a butterfly. 

He had called her ‘ my darling.’ He had called her so twice. He loved 
her just ns much as ever. In fact, he loved her more ; for the man is not 
living who does not love a woman more when he finds out somebody else 
doves her as well as he. 

She w'as quite decided, and Jerome was undeniably right ; there was but 
. one honorable course for her to follow. Even if Jerome married Clara, 
;and she herself never had another offer of marriage (she never would have 
.•ftnother such as Rube) how sweet it would be, even in a life of loneliness, 
ito be free, to be able to maintain the dignity and the probity of her woman- 


THE LIOH'S SHARE. 


57 


hood, to be able to throw aside tlie despicable pari of a double-dealer aud 
a deceiver, to be able to feel that she had been worthy of Jerome though 
never his. 

Thus Mell felt when she stretched her weary limbs on that silken couch 
of ease in the dim morning light, and turned her face to the wall, and 
closed her eyes, and thought of that exquisite moment, when from Jerome's 
shoulder, conventionally used, she had protfered to him the olive branch 
of peace and had caught the heavenly beams of that smile which restored 
her to his favor. With the bewitchment of this smile reflected upon the 
fair lineaments of her own face, Mell fell into that sweet rest, which re- 
mains even for the people who flirt. 

But how different everything always seems the day after the ball ! 

It must be the gaslight in the ball-room, it must be the sunlight in tho 
day-time, which makes all the difference. Sunlight is the effulgence of a 
God, and lights up Reality ; gas-light is a ray kindled by the feeble hand 
of man to brighten the unreal — a delusion and a snare. 

The absurd fancies of a ball-room hide their fantastic fumes in the broad 
daylight. 

Coming down to a six o’clock dinner— -finding Rube at the bottom of tho 
stairs to attend upon her — finding the assembled company, including tho 
Honorable Archibald, half-famished and yet kept w^aiting for their dinner, 
until the future mistress of the Bigge House put in an appearance, Mell 
began more clearly to estimate her own importance— her own, but through 
Rube. Her beauty, her wit, they were her own; but they had availed her 
little before her betrothment to Rube. Especially was she impressed with 
this aspect of the case, when, hanging upon his arm, she entered the brill- 
iant drawing room to become immediately the briglit particular star of tho 
social heavens, the cynosure of all eyes; to be immediately surrounded by 
flattering sycophants; to be pelted with well-bred raillery for her tardiness 
and sleepy- h cad edness; to be bowed down to and reverenced and waited 
upon and courted and admired by these high-born people— she, old 
Jacob Creecy’s daughter, but the future wife of the young master of 
tliis lordly domain. 

And Jerome expected her to give all this up — did he? And to give it 
up whether he gave up Clara, or not ? Jerome was simply crazy — and site 
W’ould be a good deal crazier herself before he caught her doing it ! Mell 
still has an eye to the main chance. Mell still ‘-tuck arter her ole daddy I” 

The summer wanes. The ripened grain is harvested and the chaff fall- 
ing from the sheaves on the threshing floor ; the patient teams sniff the 
first cool breeze and put their shoulders to the wheel ; the wagons ai’O 
heaped in corn ; the fields grow white for the picking. In the windings <;f 
green valleys yellow leaves and red play fast and loose amid the green, 
and go fluttering to the ground; the deer stalks abroad; glad hunters blow 
their horns, and the unleashed hounds are joyful at the scent of noble prey. 

Twice has the moon changed, and Mell is still at the Bigge House, show- 
ing up amifl its polished refinements, as a choice bit of Corian faience con- 
trasted with cut-glass. Every day she spoke of going, but every day there 
was some reason why she should not go and should stay. Mrs. Rutland 
wanted her to stay; and Mell herself, whatever her misgivings, whatever 
her struggles, whatever her trials, wanted, too, on the whole, to stay. Here 
w^as aeongenial atmosphere of style and fashion, congenial occupation— or 
the congenial want of any, endless variety of amusement, the hourly ex- 
citement of spirited contact with kindred minds, and no vulgar father and 


58 


THE LION'S SHARE, 


mother to mortify her tender sensibilities. Here, too, she was in the pres- 
ence of the one being on earth she most loved, and even to see him under 
cold restraint, was better than not to see him at all. Sometimes it hap^ 
pened they sat near each other for a few blissful seconds ; sometimes it 
was a stolen look into each other’s eyes ; sometimes an accidental touch of 
the hand when Jerome was initiating the ladies into the ingenious methods 
of a fore-overhand stroke or a back-underhand stroke, or the effective re- 
sults of skillful volleying — such casual trifles as these, unnoticed by others, 
but more precious to them than “the golden wedge of Ophir.” 

So the days passed on ; rainy days, dry days, clear days, cloudy days, 
bright days, dark days, every kind of day, and every one of them a day’s 
march nearer the imperishable day. 

“ There’s a messenger outside, Miss Mellville, to say that your father is 
sick and wishes you to come home.” 

Jerome, it was, who spoke. 

“ Father sick !” exclaimed Mell. “ I will go at once.” 

“ How provoking !” broke in Mrs. Rutland. “ I wanted you particularly 
to-day. Rube, too. Don’t you remember he wants you to go to Piidney ?” 

“ Yes, yes,” interrupted Mell hastily. She did not wish Mrs. Rutland 
to say before Jerome what Rube wanted her to go there for. It was to 
have her picture taken. “ I am very sorry, but if father is really sick J 
ought to go.” 

“ Rhesus is under saddle,” said Jerome. “ Shall I ride over and find out 
just how he is ? I can do so in a very few minutes.” 

“ No I” said Mell, with quick speech and restrained emphasis. "Whom 
w'ould he see there ? What would he hear ? Her mother in an old cotton 
frock, talking bad grammar. And Jerome was so delicate in his tastes, so 
fastidious and aesthetic. 

“ No,” said Mell, decidedly.' “ I’m much obliged, but — ” 

“ Yes,” interposed Mrs. Rutland, “I wish you would go, for Rube is 
not here and I’ve no notion of letting Mell go unless it is necessary.” 

“ Did you say I must not?” inquired Jerome, addressing Mell and not 
moving. 

“ Go, if Mrs. Rutland wishes it,” stammered Mell, furiously. angry with 
herself that she could not utter such commonplace words to "him without 
getting all in a tremor. They were all blind, these people, or they must 
have seen, long ago, how it stood with Jerome and herself. 

He was back in an incredibly short space of time. 

“ I saw your mother,” Jerome reported. (Great heavens ! in her poke- 
berry homespun, without a doubt !) Your father is quite sick, but not dan- 
gerously so. He only fancied seeing you, but can wait until to-morrow.” 

While the old man waited, Mell had her pretty face photographed for 
Rube. 

He drove her home in the buggy the next morning. Coming in 
sight of the quiet and shade of the old farm house niid reealiing, as a 
forgotten dream, its honest industry, its homely manners, its sweet 
simplicity, Mell marvelled at her own sensations. Could it be glad- 
ness, this feeling that swept over her at sight of the old home ? Yes, it 
was gladness. Perplexed in mind, heavy at heart, and fretted to the 
lowest depths of her soul by this struggle within her, which seemed 
to be never ending, Mell was glad to get back into the quietude of 
the old farm house after the continuous strain and excitement of the past 
few weeks. The flowers in the little garden stirred gently in the breeze ; 
there was a gleam of blue sky above the low roof ; birds chirped softly in 


TEE LION'8 SEABE. 


m 


the euonyms hedge under the window of her own little room, and the 
tranquillity and serenity and staidness of the spot soothed her feverish 
mind and calmed her feverish spirit. It was lonely, desolate, mean, and 
poor, but none the less a refuge from the storms of a higher region ; 
from the weariness of pleasure and the burden of empty enjoyment ; 
from the tiresomeness of being amused, and the TToublesomeiiess of seeming 
to be amused without being ; from an eestacy of suffering and an agony 
of transport ; in short, a hoped-for refuge from herself and Jerome. 

“ Hurry up, Mell! Hurry up! He’s mos’ gone!” 

“What, mother! You don’t mean — ?” 

“Yes, I does, Mell. He was tuck wuss in the night. He won’t know 
ye, I’m ’fraid.” 

But he did, and opening his eyes he smiled faintly, as she hung over his 
ugly face — uglier now, after the ravages of disease, than ever before; dried 
up by scorching fevers to a semblance of those parched-up things we see in 
archjeological museums; deeply lined and seamed and furrowed, as if old 
Time had never had any other occupation since he was a boy but to make 
marks upon it; uglier than ever, but with an expression upon it which had 
never been there before — that solemn dignity which Death gives to the 
homeliest features. 

“Father! father!” sobbed Mell, “don’t die! Don’t leave your little 
Mell! Don’t leave me now, when I’ve just begun to love you as I ought!” 

Ha, Mell! Just begun! He has reached a good old age, and you are a 
woman grown, and you have just begun to love your father! It is too 
late, Mell. He does not need your love now. He is trying to tell you 
that, or something else. Put your ear a little closer. 

“ What did you say, father! Try to tell me again.” 

And he did; she heard every word: 

“ Good-bye, little MeUl I ain’t gwine ter morteefy ye no mo’l” 


CHAPTER VI. 

A DEAL IN FUTURES. 

“Why do you fret so much about it?” asked Rube, sitting beside hh 
promised wife about a week after the old man was laid to rest. “You 
loved your father, of course, but — ” 

“ There’s the point!” exclaimed Mell. “ I did not love him — not as a child 
ought to love a parent. What did it matter that his looks were common 
and his speech rude? His thoughts were true, his motives good, his 
actions honest, and now I mourn the blindness which made me value him, 
not for what he was, but what he looked to be. In self-forgetfulness and 
sacrificing devotion to me he was sublime. He went in rags that I might 
dress above my station; he ate coarse food that I might be served with 
dainties; he worked as a slave that I might hold my hands in idleness; and 
how did I requite him ? I was ashamed of him; I held him in contempt. 
Oh, oh! My, my!” 

“Come, now,” remonstrated Rube, trying to stem the torrent of this 
lachrymatory deluge, and wondering what had become of all the comfort- 
ing phrases in the English language, that he could not put his tongue upon 
one of them. “ Do try to calm yourself, dearest. I know you are exag- 


60 


TEE LION'8 8UARE. 


gerating the true state of the case, as we are all prone to do in moments 
of self- upbraiding. I never saw you lacking in respect to him.” 

“There’s a great many bad things in me you never saw,” blubbered 
Mell, breaking out afresh. 

“ Dear, dear!” said Rube, “ I neyer saw such grief as this!” 

“ You — are — disgusted, I know ?” 

“ Not a bit of it!” declared Rube; “ just the contrary! I fairly dote on 
the prospect of a wife who is going to cry hard and cut up dreadful when 
anything happens to a fellow. It kind of makes dying seem sort of easy. 
But, come, now; you’ve cried enough. Let me comfort you.” 

“ No, no!” cried Mell, shrinking away from him. “ If you only knew, 
you would not want to comfort me. I do not deserve a single kind word 
from you. I am unworthy your regard. I am a weak woman, and a 
wicked one. Oh, Rube ! I have not treated you right. That day at the 
picnic I was angry with some one else; I was piqued; I did not feel as I 
made you think I felt. I — that is — ” 

Here Mell broke down completely in her disjointed arraignment of self, 
thoroughly disconcerted by the young man’s change of countenance. His 
breath came quick, a dark cloud overspread his features, and he lost 
somewhat of his ruddy color. 

“ Do you mean, then, to say I was but a tool, and the whole thing a lie 
and a cheat ?” 

Rube’s thoughts sped as directly to their mark, as the well-aimed arrow 
from the bent bow. 

“ Don’t be so angry with me,” prayed Mell, “ please don’t! You don’t 
know how much I have suffered over it. I say, at that time I thought I 
cared for some one else, and so I ought not, in all fairness, to have 
encouraged you; but, it is only since father died, that I have been able to see 
things in their true light. I have had a false standard of character, a 
false measure of worth, a false conception of human aims and human 
achievement. Out of the wretchedness of sleepless hours I have heard the 
under-tones of truth: Knowledge is great, but how much greater is 
goodness without knowledge than knowledge without goodness !” 

Rube made no reply. He left her side, and, crossing the room, folded 
his arms and looked moodily out of the window. He was very simple in 
nature, somewhat slow, sometimes stupid; but loyal and true — true in 
great things, and no less true in small ones, and as open as the day. 

Mell dried her eyes, and glanced at him anxiously. The worst part of 
her duty was now over. She began already to feel relieved ; she began 
already to know just how she was going to feel in a few minutes more, the 
possessor of a conscience, void of offence before God and man. There’s 
nothing like it — a good conscience. 

“ This beats all!” soliloquized Rube, at the window ; “ I’ll be hanged if 
there’s enough solid space in a woman’s mind to peg a man’s hat on ! 
Now, just as things have panned out all right for Devonhough, here’s a 
tombstone in my own graveyard !” 

“ Ha !” thought Mell, hearing, considering. 

‘ ‘ Just as thmgs have pa;nned out all right for Devonhough. ” 

MTiat did that mean ? Her throbbing, panting, bursting heart knev7 
only too well. Clara had come to a decision — she would marry Jerome, 
and not the Honorable Archibald. 

Rube had scarcely ceased to speak when Mell raised her head. 

“ Rube !” 

Very soft that call I 


THE LION’S SHARE. 


61 


Unheeding, Rube still looked out of the window and into the past. 
That day at the picnic— that beautiful day, that day of days; a pure, 
white, luminous spot in memory’s galaxy of fair and heavenly things— 
that day she had not felt as she had made him think she felt ; hence, he 
had been a cat’s-paw, a puppet ; and she— oh, it could not be that Mell 
was a dissembler, a hypocrite, a serpent I” 

“ Rube !” t 

A little louder was this call. 

He turned, he obeyed — no more able to resist the beckoning hand, the 
dulcet voice, the luring glance, than you or I the spells of our own indi- 
vidual Sirens and Circes. 

He came back to her, but stood in gloomy waiting, his brow so dark, 
his expression so hard and cold and stern, that the girl on the sofa felt 
herself wilting and withering before him, as a frail flower in a deadly 
blast. 

She did not say a word. 

She only used two eyes of blue, and two big tears which rolled out 
of them, and down upon her velvet cheek, and splash upon her little white 
hand, with crushing effect— not upon the hand, but the beholder. 

“ Mell,” said he, hoarsely, “ what is all this? What is the meaning of 
it ? I do not see your drift, exactly. Do you wish to be free ?” 

I thought that' would be you?' wish,” floundered Mell, “ perhaps, when 
you heard of that other — other fancy — you know. Rube ; if I had not told 
you anything about it, and it had come afterwards to your knowledge, you 
would have thought I had not acted squarely towards you.” 

“So much, then, I understand; but what are your leanings now? 
Don't beat about the bush; speak out your wishes plainly. I am not a 
brute. I. would release a woman at the very altar, if her inclinations 
leaned in another direction. Do you imagine I would care to marry a 
woman, however much I might love her, whose heart was occupied by 
another ? Where would be the sanctity of such a marriage ? I W’ould bo 
the worse defrauded man of the two. So, Melville, if there is any one you 
like better than you do me, speak it now. Tell me plainly, do you care for 
me— or some one else ?” 

Now, Mell, here’s your chance ; hasten to redeem your past. He has 
put the whole thing before you in a nutshell. You know just how he 
thinks and how he feels. After this, you dare not further betray a heart 
so noble, so forbearing, so true ! Tell him, Mell ; tell him, for your own 
sake ; tell him, for his sake ; tell him, for God’s sake ! Come, ^kiell, 
speak — speak quick ! Don’t wait a second, a single second ! A second is 
a very little bit of time, the sixtieth part of one little minute; but, short as 
it is, if you hesitate, it wall be long enough for you to remember that you 
may live to be a very old woman, and pass all your life in this old farm- 
house, utterly monotonous and wearisome ; that you will be very lonely ; 
that you will be very poor ; that you will be very unhappy ; that you will 
miss Rube’s jewels and Rube’s sugar plums and Rube’s hourly devotions, 
to which you have now become so well accustomed; — short, but long enough 
to remember all this. So speak, Mell, quick ! quick ! The second is gone 
before Mell speaks. 

It was a long second for Rube. 

“ O Mell, Mell ! can it be that you care for him and not for me ? At 
least, let me hear it— let me hear the truth I I can bear anything better 
than this uncertainty.” 


THE LION’S SHARE, 


62 

Even this bitter cry brought forth no response. The dumbness of 
Dieffenbachia lay upon Mell’s tongue. 

“ I see how it is,” said Rube, turning to go. 

“ No, vou don’t !” exclaimed Mell, pulling him back. She was now des- 
perate. 'Her tear-stained face broke into April sunshine. “ I do not care 
for that other. How could you think so ? Once I thought so myself ; it 
was a delusion. A woman cannot love a selfish, tyrannical, overbearing 
creature like that !— not really, though she may think so for a time; but 
you. Rube, you are the quintessence of goodness ! you are worth a dozen 
such men as he !” 

“ So it’s me I” ejaculated Rube. “lam the lucky dog ! I am the quint- 
essence of goodness !” 

He drew a long breath ; he sank comfortably back into the old seat and 
into the old sense of security, and addressed himself with a joyous air and 
renewed enthusiasm to the old role of love-making. 

Just like a man— the very man who thinks he has such a deep insight 
into dark matters, who thinks he knows so much about everjdhing in the 
wide world, especially women ! 

“You are the most conscientious creature alive !” declared Rube, hap- 
pier than ever, over a nearly lost treasure. “ The whole amount of your 
offence seems to be that you once thought you cared — ” 

“ Yes— that’s it ! I once thought so.” 

“But I once thought that I cared for another girl. You would not, for 
that reason, wish to send me adrift, would you ?” 

“ No. Only I wish you hadn’t 1” 

“Just the way I feel about it.” 

He laughed uncontrollably. 

“Pretty one ! Soul of honor I What other girl would have opened her 
lips about such a trifle ? And now I will not be put off another moment. 
Name the day which is to make me the happiest of men.” 

The day was named, and Mell really felt more composure of mind and 
less disquietude of spirit than she had known for many a day. She had 
eased, to some extent, her guilty conscience. She had shed many bitter, 
if unavailing, tears over Rube and her dead father; and now, convinced 
that she could not help herself, and determined to make the best of it, her 
mind drifted complacently over the long stretch of prosperous years before 
her, wherein she would be neither lonely, nor poor, nor unhappy, nor unloved; 
vith sugar plums to her taste and jewels in quantity — for there are just 
two things in this world every young woman is sure to love — tinsel and 
taffy. 

A healing balm now poured itself, so to speak, into her life and future 
prospects. 

Of Jerome she saw no more. He had gone home before her father’s 
funeral. He had seemingly passed out of her life forever. She never so 
much as mentioned his name, even to Rube, and she even thought of him 
less frequently than of yore. How could she be expected to think of him 
with the wedding trousseau demanding all her thoughts and time ? 

But one day Rube came to the farm-house, worried, and told Mell, of his 
own accord, that it was about Jerome and Clara. There had been a row 
between them. 

The Honorable Archibald Pendergast, as she well knew, was no ordinary 
man — neither, it seemed, was he an ordinary lover. Notwithstanding hi* 
late rejection, he had been paying Clara such marked attentions in Wash- 
ington that a society journal had publicly announced their engagement ; 


THE LxOX'S SHARE. 63 

•whereupon Jerome had delivered his ultimatum -she would marry him at 
once or else they were quits. 

And 1 don’t blame him,” declared Rube, “ not one bit ! He stood as 
much at her hands, and stood it as long, as a man can stand. I never 
could have taken the same from you.” 

Ah, Rube, we little know, any of us, just what we are taking at any 
hour in the day and at the hands of our own friends 1 

It is well for us that we do not. 

“ And now,” inquired Mell, scarcely able to articulate, so great was her 
agitation, what is Clara going to do ?” 

“ She is going to marry the Honorable Archibald,” replied Rube, adding, 
with the breezy disgust of a sunny temper: ‘‘ It’s a confounded shame I 
He’s old enough for her father, and I don’t believe she cares that about 
him I But he’s a great statesman, and there’s a good prospect of his get- 
ting into the White House some of these days; and some women love 
social eminence better than they do their own souls ! I am glad 3'ou are 
not one of that kind, Mell— you will be content with your planter hus- 
band, ’WT)n’t you, Mell ?” 

“ I have written him to come to our wedding,” pursued Rube. “ I like 
him as well as ever — even more ! He’s a splendid fellow ! I hope he will 
come, but I think it hardly probable.” 

Mell thought, too, it was hardly probable. After this, things went wrong 
again with Mell. Her trousseau ceased to occupy her time and attention; 
her wa^^ward thoughts waged internecine strife in regions of turmoil and 
vain speculation. 

Meanwhile, Jerome made no sign. 

“Woe is me !” wept Mell. Much had she wept since her father died; 
but a dead man is not half so sore a subject of weeping as a living 
woman’s unworthiness, when it falls under her own judgment. 

“ To do right is the only thing,” moaned the unhappy girl — “to do right 
and give no heed to consequences. I have learned the lesson at last. It 
has been a hard one. Henceforth I am going to do right though I slay 
myself in the doing.” 

She prayed that night as she had never prayed in all her life before. 
She asked for divine help in doing right by Rube. And she arose from her 
^ees strengthened to do her duty, as she then conceived it. 


CHAPTER VIL 

THE LAST STRUGGLE. 

And the quiet days pass one by one — each one very like the other— until 
the last sun has set, and the evening lights gleam in the old farm-house on 
the last night before the wedding-day— that wedding-day which she had, 
to the very last, put off to the latest ^possible time. Under the hush 
of evening skies, in the flower decked garden, in the dreamy grey air, in 
the sight of fallow fields glistening in the moonlight, Rube is saying good- 
night. 

“ To bed early,” was the parting injunction of Mell’s future lord; “ w« 
have a long journey before us.” 

“ Yes,” answered Mell, solemnly, “ a very long journey. The journey 
of hfe.” 


64 


TIIE LION'S SHARE, 


“ However long, all too short,” was Rube’s fond reply. He stroked her 
lovely hair. “ Mell ! 

‘ May never night ’twixt me and you 
\Viih thoughts less iond arise I ’ ” 

After he was gone Mell repeated those words, “ a very long journey.” 
Then she sighed. 

It would liave to be a very long journey, indeed, to correspond with this 
sigh of Mell’s — a very long sigh. 

Well, there is no better time for a woman to sigh than the night before 
site is married. Nor are tears amiss. Not one in ten knows what she’s 
about; for, if she did, she would not — 

On the brink of the Untried there is room enough to stop and look about 
one, to think better of it, to turn around and go back; only no man or woman 
was ever yet gifted with brains enough to do it. The things unknown, which 
loom up so temptingly into sight upon the brink of the Untried, look far 
more desirable, intinitely more tempting, than all the known blessings of 
the past. And so Mell sighed — but lifted not a finger to save herself. 

She went back into the little parlor to finish packing some favorite 
trifles in a box to be sent to the Bigge House ere she returned— school 
friend’s mementoes and some of Rube’s presents. 

Thus engaged, outside was heard the noise of stamping hoofs and the 
rumbling of wheels — some vehicle stopped at the gate — somebody came up 
the sanded garden path, ascended the steps, crossed the little porch and gave 
a hasty rap upon the front door. 

jlklell sprang to her feet. It thrilled her strangely, that footstep on the 
porch, that knock upon the door. 

Who could bo coming there at such an hour— and the night before her 
wedding ? 

liube, perhaps ; something he had forgotten to do or say. She would go 
to the door; she started, and came back. She listened again. 

It was not Rube’s step — it was not Rube’s knock. 

Her senses wnre ever alert; she always noticed such things. 

But the man outside had no time to lose, and did not propose to wait 
there all night. He cleared his throat impatiently and knocked again. 
This knock was louder than the first and more peremptory. It had a re- 
markable effect upon Mell — a startling effect. 

She sank upon the nearest chair, she trembled from head to foot ; wild 
thoughts whirled through her anarchical brain wdth the swiftness of a 
whirlwind, and it was not until the persistent, intruder knocked the third 
time that she succeeded, through breath coming thick and fast, and half- 
palsied lips, faintly to call out, “ Come in ! ” 

And the man came in, and the girl, crouching upon the chair, as if she 
would fain hide herself down in depths of concealment where he w'ould 
never find her, felt no surprise, knowing already the late comer was 
Jerome. 

Jerome — but not at his best. He had been sick — or, so she thought, her 
affrighted eyes sweeping over him in one swift glance. Pale was his face, 
and careworn ; physically, Jerome had never appeared so ill ; spiritually, lie 
had never appeared to better advantage. 

There arc perplexed and ethereal truths in the heart of human things 
which no bloom of health ever yet expressed. The sweetness pressed out 
of suffering by the operations of its own nature, clothes itself in a subtler 
and more irresistible charm than was ever yet discovered in the hues of a 


THE LION^S SHARE. 


65 

pearly complexion, or the rays of a brilliant eye. From under the potent 
spell of its attraction, we soon forget a countenance merely beautiful; wo 
never forget the one made beautiful through suffering. 

Our sainted mother, who went through rivers of fire and a thousand 
death agonies ere death itself came; who died, at last, with a joyful smile 
on her face, bidding us meet her on the other shore — we do not forget how 
looked ! 

Our heroic father, borne home from the battle-field, with his death 
wound; who bade us with his last breath to serve God and our country — we 
do not forget how he looked ! These are the images indelibly fixed in the 
sensitized slide of memory, while the peach-bloom face upon tbn boulevard, , 
the merry face in the dance, fade as fades the glory of a flower. 

Jerome has suffered. Some of his youth he has left behind him. But 
with that youth he has left, too, much of his suffering. At this moment 
every feature in his facial federation of harmonious elements was lighted 
up with a kindling spirit of its own. Whatever the inspiration, whether 
intrinsically noble, or ignoble, it is to its possessor a glorious inspiration. 
We say noble, or ignoble; for, one man’s glory may be another man’s 
shame, and both true men. So, perhaps, no cause is great in itself, but 
only great in the conception of the soul who conceives it and who fights 
for it. 

Out of Jerome’s presence, Mell had branded him as a being selfish, 
tyrannical, and incapable of long retaining a woman’s love;, in his presence 
she only knew he was the embodiment of life’s supreme good.. 

But worse than a flaming sword was now the sight of the man she loved. 
She dreaded the sound of his coming voice as she dreaded the trump of 
Doom. What would he say — he who handled words as a skilful surgeon 
manipulates cutting-instruments, to kill or cure — what would ho say to 
the woman who had been untrue to her word ? 

He said absolutely nothing. 

No form.al salutation passed between the two. Drawing a chair directly 
in front of the hostess, by whom his coming was- so little expected, Jerome 
sat down upon it and regarded the agitated face and the almost cowering 
form of the woman, before him, in profound silence. 

She had dreaded his words, had she ? Heavens ! This wordless arraign- 
ment of her guilty self at the bar of her own conscience, her silent accuser 
both judge and' jury, and only two wretched hearts, which ached as one, 
for witness, was worse than a true bill found in a crowded court of justice. 
A storm of angry words, a typhoon, a sorocco, a veritable Dakota blizzard 
of sweeping invective, would have been easy lines compared to this. 

She would die — Mell knew she w^ould — of sheer shame and self-reproach, 
before this awful silence, which threatened to continue to the end of time, : 
was ever broken. 

Would he never open his mouth and say something, no matter how 
dreadful ? ^ 

He did, at last. 

“ Mellville,” said Jerome, gently, “ are you glad to see me ?” 

No!” passionately. 

*‘Not glad? Then you are the most ungrateful, as well as the most 
faithless, of mortal beings. I have travelled long to get here. My reaching 
here in time was uncertain, well nigh a hopeless matter; but nothing is 
hopeless to the man who dares. What did I come for ? Do you know ?” 

“ To load me with reproaches. Do it and begone I” 

“No, Mell; I have not come for that ! There’s no salvation in abuse, 


66 


THE LlOirS SHARE. 


and I have come to save. Perhaps, Mell, there is no one in the whole 
world who understands you — your nature, in its strength and in its weak- 
ness — as well as I. You are not a perfect woman, Mell ; you have one 
fault, but even that fault I love because I so love you ! And I see so plainly 
iust how and why your love has failed me in my utmost need, and I 
know so well just how and why the conditions of existence, amid such 
surroundings as this, must be utterly unendurable to a girl of your tempera- 
ment and aims. And so, through all my anger and all my sorrow and all 
my wounded affection, I have made excuses iu my heart for my pretty 
Mell, my faithless Mell, whom I still love in spite of all her w^eakness; who 
in that weakness could find no other way of escape from a poor, bald, 
common-place, distasteful life, except through the crucifixion of her own 
heart, the ruin of her own happiness. Weak, you are nevertheless far 
dearer to me than the strongest-minded of your sex; false in act but 
not at heart, you are still the sweetest to me of all sweet womanhood; 
and I have come to save, not to reproach you ! Here is what I bring. It 
goes fittingly with the heart long in your possession.” 

He reached forth his hand to her. MeU inspected it with those dark and 
Regretful looks we bestow on the blessings which are for others, but not 
for us. 

This was the hand whose touch conferred happiness ; a hand so strong, so 
firm, so steady, perfect in every joint and finger-tip, endowed with all the 
intellectual subtlety and effective mechanism of which the hand of man is 
capable— the only hand, among thousands and ten-thousands of human 
hands, she had ever wanted for her own — and now here it was, so near, and, 
alas ! farther than ever before ! She clenched her own hands convulsively 
together, and closed her eyes to shut out the sight of it and the entreat- 
ing tenderness of its appeal. 

“ Take it,” said Jerome, seductively ; “ it is now mine to give, and yours 
to accept.” 

“ Too late,” returned MeU, in sadness ; “ to-morrow I wed with Kube.” 

“ To-morrow f Yes, I know. But have you ever reflected what a long 
way off to-morrow is ? and how little we need to dread the coming of to- 
morrow, if we look well after to-day ? And, my dear Mell, how many 
things occur to-night ere to-morrow ever comes ! That’s another thing 
you have not thought about. In your plans for marrying Rube to-morrow, 
you have neglected to take into consideration” — the rest he whispered 
into her ear, so low, so low she could scarcely catch it, but the sudden 
crash of brazen instruments, the sharp clash of steel, a thunderbolt at her 
very feet could not have made her start so violently or convulsed her with 
such terror — ^Hlie fact that you are going to marry me to-night ! ” With 
a gesture of instinctive repugnance, with a look of suppUcating horror, 
she pushed him away. 

“ Only devils tempt like that I” 

' “No devil ever yet tempted a woman to right-doing.” 

“ It could not be right to treat Rube so.” 

“ It is the only way to right a wrong already done him.” 

“ No. I am going to make that wrong up to Rube. I have sworn, to do 
it 1 I am going to stick by Rube through thick and thin. You go away! 
What did you come here for? Dark is the fate of the woman who bre3» 
her plight^ vows.” 

“ Darker still the fate of the woman who seals false vows. Such ar® 
untrue to the high instincts of the immortal within them.” 


THE LION’S SHARE. 67 

“But think how infamous! how base such an act! how scandalous! 
I cannot do it !” 

“ Yet, you will do worse— far worse. A loveless marriage is worse than 
a broken vow. Such a marriage may pass current for legal tender in the 
courts of the world, but when some day, you come to square up accounts, 
you will find fraudulent bonds and unholy speculation in married estate 
the worst investment a foolish woman ever made. Dishonesty never pays, 
but it pays less in a marriage without love than anywhere else. And 
where's the use of trying to deceive Rube and the rest of the world, when 
God knows? You can’t very well hoodwink Him, Mell. And how will 
you be able to endure it; to be clothed in marvellously fine ganiK'nts 
and ride in a chariot, and envy the beggars as you pass them in their 
honest rags ; to be a Jonas in every kiss, a Macliiavelli in every word, a 
crocodile in every tear ; Janus-faced on one side, and mealy-mouthed on 
the other ; to be a fraud, a sham, a make-believe, an organized humbug, 
and a painted sepulchre? That’s the picture of the woman who miirries 
one man and loves another. Is it a pleasant picture, Mell ? You will chafe 
behind the gilded bars, and champ the jewelled bit. You will feel the 
sickening thraldom of a cankering memory, a rankling regret, a sullen re- 
morse, a longing after your true self, with every breath a lie, every act 
a counterfeit, every word a mincing of the truth. God only knows how 
you will bear it! ” 

God only — she did not. Her head drooped lower in unspeakable bitter- 
ness and humiliation. Amid all the darkness she could see but one ray of 
light. 

“ But if I do my duty — ” began Mell. 

“ A woman’s first duty to her husband is to love him,” said Jerome, 
gravely ; “ failing in that, she fails in all else.” 

“ But love comes with the doing of duty, everybody says. I must do my 
duty by Rube.” 

“ Very well. Do your duty, Mell, but do it now. That is all I ask. 
Manifestly it is not your duty to marry him. With every throb of your 
heart pulsating for me, you will not be worth one dollar to Rube in the 
capacity of a wife. He would tell you so, if he knew. Can’t you see that, 
Mell ?” 

She could see it distinctly. Jerome’s words burned with the brilliancy 
of magnesium, throwing out this aspect of the subject in glaring light. 
Rube stood again before her, as he had stood on the morning of that day 
upon which she had undertaken to fulfil her promise to Jerome and failed 
so ignominously — stood, and was saying : “/ would be the most defrauded 
mail of the two,” and “ where would be the sanctity of such a marriage ? ” 

Not one dollar would she be worth to him — if he Jcnew ! He would know 
some time ; everything under the sun gets known somehow, the only ques- 
is— when ? 

Seeing the impression made, Jerome spoke again, in words low, im- 
passioned : 

‘ ‘ Save yourself, for the love of God ! Save yourself and Rube from such 
a fate !” 

Moll glanced about her in terror and confusion, turning red and pale. 
Gladly would she save herself; but how can a respectable member of good 
society accept salvation at such a price— the price of being talked about ? 

“ It is too late,” she told her companion, in tones as sorrowful as the 
wail of a wandering bard in a strange land ; “too late ! Why, man, the 
bridal robes are ready, the bridal cake is baked, the bridal guests are 


68 


TEE LION’8 SEAEE 


bidden; and would you have me, at this last minute, turn Rube into a laugh- 
ing-stock, a by-word on every idle lip, a man to be pointed out upon the 
streets, a man to be jeered at in the crowd? Would you have me do 
that?” 

“ Yes. That is not a happy lot, but it soon passes, and is better than 
being duped for life and wretched for life.” 

Mell averted her face. She seemed striving for words : 

“ I don’t see why Rube should bo so unhappy as you seem determined to 
make him. Even granting that he knew that I do not feel romantically 
towards him, as I have felt towards you — ” 

“ Have felt ?” interposed her listener. 

She waived his question aside and proceeded : 

“ Still there is a love born of habit and propinquity, and that will come 
to my rescue. Rube is a splendid fellow ! I respect him. I honor his 
character, and I could be happy with him if — ” 

“ Well,” said Jerome, huskily, “go on.” 

If it were not for you.^' 

“ Ha !” exclaimed he, “ has it come to that ? That alters the case com- 
pletely. I will take myself off, then ! I will get out of your way ! Had I 
suspected the existence of one drop of real affection in your heart towards 
the man you are about to marry, I would have cut off this right hand of 
mine rather than come here to-night. In coming I was sustained by the 
belief that I would not defraud my friend — not in reality — not of any 
tiling he could value; not of a wife, but of an empty casket. This belief, 
on my part, is all that redeems my coming from being an act of diabolism. 
.And now it turns out that there is a very good reason why the bridal cake 
■’cannot be thrown to the dogs, and the bridal robes cannot be committed to 
the flames, and the bridal guests eannot upon any account be robbed of 
their bride upon the morrow — you could he happy with him if it were not 
for me r' 

Bitter in tone was this repetition of her words — words which wounded 
him so keenly. They were calculated to wound the tender sensibilities of 
any lover, most of all a lover of Jerome Devonhough’s stamp. He could 
condone any weakness on her part, except that which touched his own 
dominion over her — the sceptre of his love, the yoke of his power. Under 
a pacific exterior, there seethed in Jerome, volcanic masses of self-will and 
unchangeable purpose ; hemmed in, held in bounds, seldom breaking forth 
in violent eruption, but always there. He was totally unprepared for any 
change in the feelings of the woman upon whom he had lavished the arbi- 
trary tenderness of his own strong nature. Jerome, you perceive, is no more 
of a hero than Mell is a heroine. He is the counterpart of the man who 
lives round the corner, who sits next you in church, whom you meet not 
unfrequently at your friend's house at dinner. This man loves his wife, 
cot because she is an artistic production, elaborately wrought out in broad, 
mellow, triumphant lines, grand in character, but rather because he recog- 
nizes good material in her for his own moulding. We must never approach 
the contemplation of any man’s requirements in a wife with our minds full 
of loose generalities. There is so much of the fool in every man, the wisest 
man, who falls in love. He falls in love, not so much with what is ideally 
lovable in a woman, but what is practically complemental to his own nature. 
Jerome, being strong, loved Mell, who was weak, and w^ak in those very 
places where Jerome was strong. She needed him. He felt that he was a 
necessary adjunct to her perfect development in the sphere of womanhood; 
he felt that sh6 was necessary to him in the enlargement of his manhood 


THE LIOE’S SHAEE. 


69 


For, does not a man of his type need some one to guide, to govern, to lord 
it over, and to get all the nonsense out of? But he would love her, too, 
notwithstanding all this, with that sheltering devotion which a woman 
needs— all women, with one exception. A strong woman in her strength 
is not dependent upon any man’s love. 

“ So it has come to this,” pursued Jerome, brooding in low tones over the 
matter, “there is but one impediment to your happiness — the man whom 
you have professed to love, whom you have so basely resigned. AVith rni; 
safely out of the way, you and Kube are all right. You do, it seems, know.' 
your own mind at last. And Clara Rutland knows hers at last, and every- 
body is about to be made incontinently happy — everybody but me ! I am. 
left out in the cold ! I am left, between you all, stranded on the lonely 
rock of unbelief, either in a woman’s word or a woman’s love; and must 
eat alone, and digest as best I may, all the sour grapes left over from two 
marriage-feasts. A pleasant prospect, truly 1 Would to God I had never 
seen either one of you !” 

Mell was dumb. She was dumb from conviction. Clara Rutland ?iad 
treated him badly, and so had she; and she could think of nothing to say 
which would put in any fairer light that ugly treatment. She marvelled 
at his patience through it all; she was bewildered that he had thus far, 
dui’ing this trying interview^, remained 

‘‘ In high emotions self-controlled.” 

She knew a change must come. She saw through furtive eyes and without 
raising her head, that a change had already come. Not even a strong will 
can regulate a heart’s pulsations — a heart which has been sinned against in 
its most sacred feelings. As the storm-clouds sw'eep up from the west and 
mass themselves with awful grandeur in battle array, so lowered dark and 
tempestuous thoughts, pregnant with danger, on the young man’s brow. 
Across his frame there swept a convulsive quiver of emotion; his features 
took on that hard, stern look of repressed indignation and passion which 
Mell so well knew and so much feared. 

With that look upon his face, Jerome was not a man to be trifled with. 

But what was he going to do ? Shake her again ? 

She said nothing when he took hold of her two hands with a grasp of iron. 
Silently she awaited her fate ; tremblingly she wondered what that fato 
would be. 

He wms only telling her good-by. He knew not how hard he pressed 
upon those tender hands ; he only knew he might never clasp them in his 
owm again. It was a terrible moment— terrible not alone for Mell. 

One would have thought, seeing how he suffered in giving her up, that 
she w^as the last woman in the world; w^hereas, we know there are mwltk 
tudes of them, many more estimable in character, some equally desirable ia 
person, with just such wondrous hair, just such enchanting eyes, just such 
shapeliness of construction, enough in itself to inspire mankind with the 
most passionate love — plenty of her kind, but none exactly Mell ! 

Sensible of that detaining clasp; knowing his keen eyes scanned darkly 
and hungrily every quivering feature in her unquiet face ; hearing his 
labored breath and the low sobs wrung from a strong man’s agony, Mefil 
felt first as a guilty culprit. 

If only he would stab her to the heart, and then himself. 

We little thought, any of us, when we saw him lying in the meadow on 
the grass at her feet, that out of the joyous inspiration of that glorious 


THE LION'S SHARE, 


70 

summet weather, out of two young lives so beautiful, out of young love, a 
thing so full of poetry and romance, would come such wretchedness as this. 

After a little while, the touch of those rose-leaf palms, the whiteness of 
her face, the appeal for mercy in those eyes seeking his own, had a sooth- 
ing effect upon Jerome. He* would now put forth all his strength and 
quietly say good-by. 

Softly he pressed to his lips one of those imprisoned hands; softly, in a 
heart-sick rapture of despairing renunciation, ho was about to do the same 
with the other, when the glint of Rube’s solitaire, the pledge of her hated 
bondage to another, the glaring witness of her treachery towards himself, 
ffashed into his eyes and overcame all his good resolutions. With a look of 
unutterable reproach, with a gesture of undying contempt, he tossed the 
offending hand back upon her lap. 

“Think not,” he broke forth, in vehement utterance, “ that no thought 
of me will embitter your bridal joys ! I leave you to your fate ! I go to 
my own! Dark it may be, but not darker than yours 1” 

And this was the quiet way in which he bade her good-by. 

The words pierced Mell to the very soul, and, combined with the blackness 
of his cou»tenance, filled her with indefinable, but very horrible imaginings. 
He had almost reached the door, when with a smothered cry of pain, she 
followed him. 

As irresistibly as ever he drew her. 

“Jerome! Jerome I Where are you going ?” 

“To ruin!” exclaimed he, turning upon her with that barbaric fierce- 
ness which seems to underlie everything strong in nature — “ to ruin, where 
you women without principle, have sent many a better man! To ruin, and 
to hell, if I choose,” he added, with fearful emphasis. “My going and my 
coming are no longer any concern of yours !” 

“Yes, they are, Jerome,” she assured him, deprecatingly. “Don’t leave 
mo in anger, Jerome 1” 

“Not in anger? Then, how — in delight?” There was now a menacing 
gleam in his eye which more than ever alarmed her. “ My cause is lost. 
You have done me all the wrong you could, and now that I am dismissed, 
set aside, told to begone, debased, and dethroned, you expect me to be 
delighted over it, do you ?” 

“No, Jerome; but do not leave me feeling so. Promise me to do noth- 
ing rash.” 

“I will not promise you anything! You have not spared my feelings, 
why should I spare yours ? Since your affection for me has moderated into 
that platonic kind, which admits of your happiness in union with another, 
1 will do whatever I please to do, knowing no act of mine, however dreadful, 
will affect you.” 

“Oh, Jerome, do not say that I You must see, you must know in your 
heart, that I do still care for you — Oh, God ! more than I ought.” 

“ And yet not enough to make you do what is right!” 

“But to right you, will wrong Rube,” she answered in confusion. 

“ Enough, then : you know your own feelings, or ought to. Since Rube 
is the one dearest to you, marry him !” 

, He turned again upon his heel. Obeying an impulse she could not resist, 
' Mell once more detained him. It is hard to die, everybody says ; but to die 
yourself must be easier than to give up the one you love. 

“Jerome, wait a moment! Come back! Jerome, you do not realize 
what a dishonorable thing this is you are persuading me to do ?” 

“ Don’t I ?” he laughed wildly. “ God Almighty! Mellville, what do you 


THE LION^S SHARE, 


71 


take me for ? Wonldn’t I have been here a week ago, two weeks ago, but 
for the battle I have had to fight with my own scruples — but foi the war 
I have had to wage with my own soul ? I have said to myself, again and 
again, ‘ I will not do this thing though I die ! ’ But when I started out upon 
this journey, it had come to this: ‘ I must do this thing or else — die ! ’ ” 

Shaken as a storm-rifted tree bending in the blast, she was not yet up- 
rooted. 

“ It is hard, hard,” she murmured, 'wringing her hands in nervous con- 
straint; “but time, you know, Jerome, time softens everything.” 

“ It does!” he said, harshly — “ even the memory of a crime 1” 

“ What do you mean by that ?” exclaimed Mell, every word of his filling 
her with indefinable fears. 

‘ ‘ I mean what I say. Once out of the way, you and Rube, the two beings 
most dear to me on earth, could be happy together ; you have told me so. 
Then, how selfish in me — ” 

“ Oh, Jerome, you would not I Surely you would not do such a thing !” 

“ I do not say that I would, nor that I would not. A desperate man is 
not to be depended on either by himself or others. I only know that in this 
fearful upheaval of all my life’s aims and ends, any fate seems easier than 
living. But Mellville — ” his tones were now quiet, but they were firm; his 
lips were set in angles of immovable resolve; his brow bent and dark with the 
shadows of unlifting determination. It would be difficult to imagine a more 
striking figure than Jerome in the role of a man who had made up his mind — 
‘ But Mellville, this struggle must end. It must end now, or it will put an 
end to us. I did not come here to-night to submit to the humiliation of 
begging a woman to marry me against her will. I came to rescue a being 
in distress from the painful consequences of her own rash act. Now, then, 
you love me, or you do not ? You will marry me, or you will not ? Which is 
It ? Answer ! In five minutes I leave this house, with or without you !” 

He dropped upon his knees at her feet; he snatched her to his breast. 
Reiison was gone, his soul all aflame : 

“ Mell, listen : Love is more than raiment, more than food, more than 
the world’s censure or the world’s praise. It is sweeter in lite than life 
itself ! But time presses; the other wedding comes on apace; we have no 
time to spare. An hour’s hard driving will bring us Parson Fordbam’s, 
well known to me. There we will be married at once, and catch the early 
train at Pudney. Our names will be an execration and a by- word for a 
little time, but what of that ? What though all friends turn their backs 
upon us 1 Together we will enter hopefully upon a new life, loving God 
and each other— a life of truer things, Mell ; a life consecrated to each other 
and glorified by perfect love and perfect trust. Will you lead that life ’\ivdth 
w^r 

“ No, T. will not !” 

“ Wnat, Mellville!” he cried. “You will not! I thought you loved 
me, loved me as I loved you ?” 

“ Once I loved you,” she said. She spoke now as much to her own soul 
as to his perceptions. “ Once — or was it only that I thought I did ? For 
long weeks I struggled against deceiving Rube, and out of that I must 
have drifted by slow degrees into deceiving myself. For, to-night, even 
to-night, when I parted from Rube I thought it was you I loved, not he ! 
But the mists have lifted from my vision, and now, at this moment— never 
fully until this moment-^I see you both in your true light ; I weigh you 
understandingly, one against the other ; I set your self-seeking against his 
unselfishness, your improbity against his high sense of honor. And how 


72 


TEE LION^S SHARE. 


plainly I see it all ! Just as if a moral kaleidoscope were exhibiting by spir- 
itual reflections, to the eyes of my mind, the ditference between one man 
and another, at an angle of virtue which is the aliquot part of three hundred 
and sixty degrees of real merit ! Upon this disk of the imagination appears 
your own image; and what are you doing ? Passing me by as an unknown 
thing, a thing too small to know in the presence of mighty magnates at a 
county picnic ! There is another manly form ; what is he doing ? Lifting me 
up from the bare earth where the other’s cruel slights have crushed me; feed- 
ing me with his own hands ; even then loving me. How different the pic- 
tures ! Shift the scene. Some one is crowning me : I am a queen before the 
world. Whose hand has held a crown for me ? Hot yours — Rube’s ! You 
had not the courage. He had. I love courage in a man. I love it better 
than a handsome face or an oily tongue. A man without courage — what is 
he? He isn’t a man at all — not really. Jerome Hevoiihough,” here she 
turned her lovely face, grown so cold, and her exquisite eyes, grown so 
scornful, full upon him, “ were you the right sort of a man, would you be 
here to-night ? Will a man, false to his friend, be true to his wife ? I can 
trust Rube Rutland; can I trust you? No! For, even while loving, I 
could not keep down a feeling of contempt. Beginning with respect for 
Rube, that sentiment of respect has ripened into love — real love — not the 
wild, senseless, mad, unreasoning passion of an untutored girl, which eats 
into its own vitals, and drains its own lees, — as mine for you, — but that 
deeper, better, higlier, more enduring, and well-nigh perfect affection of the 
full-lived woman, who out of deep suffering has emerged into an enlightened 
conception of her owm nature’s needs, her own heart’s craving for w^hat is 
best, truest, most God-like in a man ! That love, which will w^ear well, 
nor grow threadbare through time, which will take on a more w^ondrous 
glow in the realms of eternity, is the love I feel for Rube !” 

“Bah!” he exclaimed, not yet quenched, not yet hopeless. “Eternity 
is a long word, and all your fine talking cannot deceive me! Oh, wmman, 
woman, what a face you have, and what brains ! I do not know which 
holds me tighter. That face so fair, that mind so subtle — together they 
might well turn the head of the devil himself, but they cannot deceive me ! 
The string which draws you is golden. It is not Rube you love so much, 
so purely, so perfectly ; oh, no, not Rube ! Not Rube, but his possessions. 
Not the man— the man’s house ! Its beautiful turrets and gables, its gardens 
and lawns, its lovely views, and spacious luxury, and abounding w^ealth. 
For that you give me up. Still loving me, Rube’s pelf is dearer still !” 

“ Not now — not now ! Now I love him — the man ! Not for what he has, 
but for what he is. For his truth, his nobility, his honor ; and, as that 
honor is in my keeping, I bid you go and return no more. Your pow^r to 
tempt me from my duty and my love is over ! My faith is grounded, my 
purpose unalterable. Go !” 

“ This is folly. Come with me I” he cried, striving to draw her towards 
the door. 

^ She resisted. 

“ Come !” he urged. 

She broke from him, crying : 

“ No, by heaven ! Were it the only chance to save my own life, I would 
not go ! I have done with you now, forever !” 

“ Good-night, then,” he told her, with a bitter sneer and a low, mocking 
bow. “ Good-night; but you will be sorry for this ! You will regret this 
night’s work all the days of your life. Its memory will darken the brightest 
day of your life !” 


THE LION’S SHARE. 


73 


f 

She did not speak, or move, as he turned upon his heel and left her. 

There sounds his foot upon the stair, and next upon the gravelled walk ! 
And now the garden-gate swings open, and the carriage-door bangs shut, 
after which the wheels grate upon the pebbles, and the clatter of horses’ 
hoofs rings out upon the midnight air. Gone ! Gone ! 

Her head reels ; all her senses seem benumbed. Not even a heavy tread 
through the dark entry did she hear. It was the clasp of strong arms 
around her which woke her from her trance. 

She turned, exclaiming in alarm : “ Rube 1 You here I You— you have 
heard ?” 

“Every word. I was up; I could not sleep. Does any man sleep the 
night before he is married ? I could not. I lighted a cigar and went out 
upon the lawn. At the gate I stood, puffing away and looking up in this 
direction, wondering if my sweet wife that is to be had obeyed my part- 
ing injunctions and gone to sleep, when presently a carriage came tearing 
along, going in the very direction of my own thoughts. A man sat within; 
I cannot say that I exactly recognized that man in the moonlight, but I 
saw' him move quickly back when he saw me, and that aroused my suspi^ 
cions. 1 followed ; I could not help following. Something told me my 
happiness was menaced, my love in danger. I was determined to know 
the truth, Mell. I listened.” 

“ And you do not hate me ?” 

“ Hate you, Mell ? Dearer to me than ever you are at this moment I I 
know how^ you have been tempted; I realize all you have overcome. Never 
could I doubt such love ! Comforted by it, I can bear up even under so 
heavy a misfortune as the treachery of a friend. But the hour is late ; 
we must not talk longer; you must snatch a little rest. Good-night once 
more, dear love. To-morrow, Mellville, you will be mine — to-morrow !” 

‘ ‘ Aye, Rube 1 To-morrow, yours I Upon every day and every morrow 
of my life, always yours 1” 


THE END. 








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